Kali Johnson

LIU is finally over and I am really sad. I had such an amazing time with such an awesome group of people. At first, I thought this class was going to be lecture after lecture in the same room day after day. This thought was completely wrong. I was really surprised when we traveled to different places around Des Moines, Ankeny, and Pella. I also didn’t think we would be attending an Iowa Cubs game either!

Attending Leadership Iowa University truly was one of the smartest decisions I have ever made in my life. I was exposed to so many influential business leaders throughout the week than I have ever been before. I learned tons of useful information including all aspects of networking, how to give myself a personal brand, and how to think outside of the box to achieve. One of the biggest lessons I took away from this class was that Iowa has more to offer than I had known. I was one of those people that wanted to get away as soon as I got out of college and now I am second guessing myself. I really do take for granted how cheerful and willing to help others Iowans are. Des Moines in particular is an amazing city, especially for young professionals. This might be a prospective city for my future career!    

Today was the best day at LIU so far. We traveled to the Iowa Soybean Association in Ankeny where we learned about agriculture and the food industry. Aaron Putze gave a presentation on Iowa Food and Family. I highly recommend that everyone go to this website and check it out. It really made me think about where our food is going and how many people we need to feed worldwide and locally here in Iowa.       

Another day at LIU and it was awesome! We started with a few speakers in the morning, toured downtown Des Moines, ate at Dos Rios (delicious!), and then came back to ABI Headquarters for a panel discussion about Iowa and what it has to offer for us as young professionals. I couldn’t believe how many large companies were here in Iowa and how many people they employ. I honestly had no idea the magnitude of business Iowa does for being a smaller state. After the panel, we watched a video that really sparked my interest. It was called Shift Happens and this video in particular was referring to Iowa and Iowa’s education. In the video, it showed how far behind Iowa is compared to the rest of the states in technology use in education. It really hit home to me because we rarely if ever used technology in high school. Yes, we did research papers online and worked online some, it was very minimal to what I thought we could be doing.

Today was a very very busy day, starting with going to the Capitol and touring the entire building. I absolutely loved the library. I have to have a library like that in my future home! After spending time in the Capitol, and meeting the Governor (so awesome), we traveled to Pella Corp. This was really similar to Barker Co., a company my father works at, that Tom is in charge of.

The next place on the agenda was Veel Hoeden. I have never seen a place like this before. The concept of having several businesses sharing a common office/area is really neat, especially for small business owners who are just starting up. While the space was small, there were several offices, a lounge area, and a huge conference room. I feel like this is what I would like to see in more small towns in Iowa. It is an awesome place to network and make a close-knit business family. I know of several people who work out of their homes, while also taking care of children and housework. A place like Veel Hoeden would be great for these types of people to rent out a small office place for a cheap price where they cannot be distracted by their home life. I hope this idea catches on across the state of Iowa.

I feel like continuing my service and community work and getting other excited about volunteering is one of my biggest assets to the future success of Iowa. I participate/have participated in many service organizations including National Honor Society, Rotary projects, Heartland Humane Society, and Save the Turtles of Parismina, Costa Rica. I have completed over several hundreds of hours of service work and hope to raise that number to the thousands. I believe volunteering is very prevalent in Iowa and I would like educate others about opportunities to get involved.

As I learned with the Strengths Finder assessment, I have a strength in Communication. I have absolutely no problem or worries speaking in front of a large group of people. I feel this would be a great tool to help get the word out to the Iowa and surrounding public about serving and volunteering for our state. Having leaders in Iowa that support service projects or community work and are willing to openly speak about it is very important. It will show the residents of Iowa, especially the youth, how significant and rewarding giving back to the community is.