Gracie Campbell – Staff Writer 

This past weekend, Dordt’s FLAME business club travelled to Omaha for the annual fall business trip. With a team of three professors, 25 students piled into buses early Thursday morning to make the two-and-a-half-hour trek south. 

FLAME, standing for Future Leaders and Missional Entrepreneurs, takes one trip a semester to various Midwest cities. Students in the FLAME club work in one of the two student-run coffee shops on campus. Their work helps pay for their portion of the trip. On these trips, students tour different businesses; depending on the city the business can be both large and small. In the past, FLAME has made trips to Des Moines, St. Louis, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. 

This year the group split into two different tracks: one group of marketing and management students and the other accounting and finance students. This break allowed students to explore their personal vocations and interests. Both groups visited a Coca-Cola packaging plant on the way down in Sioux City, but once in Omaha split ways. The marketing and management group visited Gallop Polls Headquarters, Scooters Coffee Headquarters, and Horsepower Brands. The accounting and finance group visited multiple insurance companies including First National Insurance Company, Lincoln Financial, and Kiewit Construction. 

Isaac Rhone, a senior Business Admin and Entrepreneurship student, said he would go again. 

“That was for sure the best trip I’ve been on. It was fast and it was action-packed,” Rhone said. “Everybody was talking about the businesses as we were driving home.” 

This trip topped others coming out of the pandemic. 

“It felt, especially post-covid some of the trips we’ve gone on have been difficult to organize actual tours,” Rhone said. 

They have had multiple trips where companies would come to their hotel but, Rhone said “it’s different than seeing the office, especially seeing the Gallop office or the Scooters Headquarters.” Rhone enjoyed Gallop the most and said he would consider working there in the future. 

Freshman accounting student Destiny Timmer agreed. As part of the accounting group, Timmer enjoyed Kiewit most. 

“I learned more about a bunch of different positions you could have,” Timmer said. “[Kiewit] is more of a construction company but we focused on the accounting side of it. They have their own tax people instead of going through other [tax companies].” 

Professors Tim Klein, Randy Smit, and Joshua Hollinger led the groups to Omaha. Klein enjoyed travelling with the group and was impressed with the students. 

“My favorite part, honestly, was seeing the students engage,” Klein said. 

The students were actively involved in each tour asking questions and listening to the guides for each company and panel. 

The group returned Friday afternoon, spending the previous night in an Omaha hotel. The FLAME club intends to make the spring trip in 2023 to Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Photo credit: FLAME Coffee Shops