Des Moines Business Record

Check out today's innovationIOWA Weekly for a story on a research effort out of Iowa State working to help farmers and more entrepreneurship and innovation news from around the state: https://lnkd.in/gRZqTxBM

Associate Editor Michael Mendenhall is in Washington, D.C., this week following the 45th annual DMDC trip. Watch the Business Record Daily for coverage during and following the trip!

Manufacturers: Share your input on the future of manufacturing technology The Business Record is polling stakeholders in Iowa's manufacturing sector about how automation and technology are affecting the industry today and into the future for an upcoming news story for the Business Record print edition. We invite any manufacturing company or stakeholder statewide to participate. Responses are due by Monday, May 20. https://lnkd.in/giStyfyM

Did you miss Fearless? In this week’s e-newsletter, you will find: - More from our annual Fearless survey: What are the biggest challenges, obstacles or barriers that you and other women face outside of work? - A column by Jackie Norris about the invisible burdens of caregiving for aging loved ones. - The annual Healthy Birth Day, Inc. Count the Kicks Changemakers Luncheon brought in more than $310,000. - Lots more! #EmpoweringWomen #WorkLifeBalance #Caregiving

Congratulations to Lynne Belknap, who celebrated her first year with BPC yesterday! In the past year, Lynne has spearheaded our custom content division with creativity and innovation, including integrating programmatic advertising to extend our clients' reach beyond our usual audience. "We're all about connecting our clients with their people," Lynne said. "Now, we can amplify our local and national clients' narratives." Lynne takes pride in contributing to a company that plays a pivotal role in fostering community growth. "I love crafting tailored solutions that showcase our advertisers' stories across all our platforms," she shared. "What sets us apart is not just creating content, but also having the distribution channels to share those stories with the community." Lynne, we appreciate your dedication and service to our company! Here's to many more successful years ahead. If you would like to discuss custom content and marketing solutions with Lynne, you can reach out through this link: https://lnkd.in/gThhB-Z9

"During COVID-19, in the welding industry, the cost of raw materials tripled from normal market prices," wrote Derrick Walker, co-chair of welding, DMACC Ankeny campus. "This affected our welding program because the institution did not want to raise the cost of tuition to accommodate rising prices of raw materials. This is the most common issue in my trade that affects the bottom line. When prices go up, sales go down due to prices rising for materials to build new products." Read other trends in the trades here from our Annual Real Estate Magazine: #Trades #RealEstate #IndustrialMarket

Join us Thursday, May 16 at 9 a.m. at Des Moines Heritage Center for our next Power Breakfast: Leadership in Changing Times. Persistent economic uncertainty and global disruption, coupled with the rapid evolution of technology and artificial intelligence, present new challenges and opportunities to today’s business leaders. The pace of change that started even before the pandemic is showing no sign of stopping. In addition to managing the rapid rate of change, leaders today are increasingly living in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment. In this Power Breakfast, learn from top leaders about how they are preparing themselves for change and leading their teams in a VUCA world. PANELISTS: Pete Brownell: chairman of the board, Brownells Miriam Erickson Brown: chair and CEO, AE Dairy Angela Franklin, Ph.D.: president and CEO, Des Moines University David Stark: chief of government, external affairs and philanthropy, UnityPoint Health Emily Steele: CEO and co-founder, Hummingbirds Tickets available at https://lnkd.in/gQBz-mxk

Happy anniversary to Sara Brown, who is celebrating seven years at BPC this week! We’d like to thank Sara for her essential roles as a leader in both strategy and sales. She is a focused sales leader who cultivates relationships with clients to provide solutions and deliver results. She is also the architect for the structure of the BPC event portfolio, where she creates the vision and sales structure. “The best part of my job is tackling challenges head-on and creating the pathway to overcoming them,” Sara said. “I love creating initiatives and products that resonate with the growth and alignment of our clients and community.” Although today she is celebrating seven years, Sara's been a driving force here at BPC for a collective 15 years, wearing many hats along the way. She's particularly proud of how we've become a hub for bringing people together, educating, and celebrating our community. "It's pretty special to be part of creating events that showcase all the good happening around us," Sara adds. As our company has grown, Sara's been right there in the thick of it, using her know-how to build programs that work. “Over the years, I’ve learned the ins and outs of the business,” she said. “The piece I really enjoy the most is having the opportunity to connect with clients and grow their organization through listening and strategizing.” Thank you, again, for everything you do, Sara!

Meet Erin Knupp, one of the Business Record's 2024 Forty Under 40. She is the director of business development at Boyd Jones. Outside of work, she volunteers on the board of directors for Urban Dreams and the Des Moines Downtown Chamber of Commerce. She also serves on the fundraising committee for the Center at Sixth, a nonprofit focused on affording equal business opportunities to Black and brown business owners. Her biggest passion is connecting others. "In my profession, it's not what you know – it's who you know," she says. "I have accomplished a lot of things because of the generosity of other business professionals willing to connect me to others and help point me in the right direction. I want to do the same for everyone I have an encounter with." https://lnkd.in/g5QTfSFW

As planting season gets underway for farms all around Iowa, the Iowa Nitrogen Initiative is in the early stages of a project focused on giving farmers better data and tools to make decisions that will affect their operations and the environment for years to come. Mike Castellano, who leads the research effort out of Iowa State University, said the limited data Iowa State collects and uses to recommend the ideal nitrogen fertilizer rates to farmers is comparable to only collecting weather data from a few places around the state. “Imagine if we only collected weather data at a dozen places in the state of Iowa, how accurate our forecasts would be,” Castellano said. “Imagine if we stopped collecting weather data tomorrow, how good the weather forecast for next month would be.” Read more about how the initiative is partnering with farmers and nitrogen’s effect on water quality in today’s cover story: https://lnkd.in/g-wJYSM4