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MARKETING INTERN: Amber Kohmetscher

Aurora Cooperative 6 years ago

For the summer my primary location is at the Corporate office in Aurora. I spend my days helping out in the marketing department wherever needed. From getting everything prepared to put on a great event, to making phone calls, to writing up stories about our customers and employees, to preparing promotional items from the marketing cage, and taking many pictures, I have kept busy and learned a great deal along the way.

In the past couple weeks, I have attended and helped with events, traveled to locations throughout Nebraska and Colorado, and I have spoken with a few of our customers. My project for the summer includes promoting our fuel truck drivers by taking pictures, capturing videos, and listening to them tell me their story. In all, I will be making stops at ten of our locations, but so far I have met with drivers from the Bertrand, Byron, Clay Center, Upland, and Aurora locations. While on my visits I have rode in the fuel truck to really capture what our drivers do day in and day out. We have made stops to fill tanks in the field for irrigation and also at farms to fill those tanks for their vehicles and machinery.

While on my Aurora visit I was given the opportunity to speak with Al Klute who is an Aurora Cooperative customer. I really enjoyed meeting with Al and learning about his operation and how the cooperative has helped them. With E15 making its mark, Al had great things to say about it from the price and efficiency differences, to what it’s really all about, helping the markets by keeping our corn local. He hopes everyone will get on the E15 bandwagon, but he understands that it will take time for the infrastructure to be there to make that a possibility. Be sure to keep an eye out for Al’s full story to learn more about his experiences with Aurora Cooperative.

Other highlights of the summer include the Owners’ Acres tours, employee training days, retirement parties, and later this month a grand opening of a new fuel location in Grant and fuel upgrades and E15 offerings in St. Paul and Minden. Last week I was able to attend the National Kickoff Meeting in Grand Island with keynote speaker Jeffrey Gitomer. About 250 of the Aurora Cooperative sales representatives attended the training. At the event Maggie Grosshans, our other marketing intern, and I were in charge of distributing books and apparel to everyone in attendance. While getting to see everyone’s smiling faces at the “A Store” was great interaction, having the privilege to listen to Jeffrey teach us how to be better employees and more engaging people was the highlight of my day.

As my summer quickly moves along I look forward to meeting with the rest of the fuel truck drivers, speaking with more customers and learning more about our crops at the Owners’ Acres plots.