NOTEBOOK: Who’s running the store?
KENT DARR & PERRY BEEMAN Aug 16, 2018 | 4:05 pm
1 min read time
295 wordsArts and Culture, Business Record Insider, The Insider Notebook
I ran out to the Iowa State Fair Wednesday to talk small business with a few people and spent a few minutes walking around (first trip to the fair this year and all).Well, I bumped into a few people you might know.
In the Varied Industries Building, there was John McCarroll, Iowa State University’s communications guru, folding ISU football posters in his T-shirt and shorts. “I do this for six hours every year,” said McCarroll, looking relaxed and rested. (A short distance away, a steady stream of fairgoers who are fans of the state’s largest university were getting Cyclone temporary tattoos.)
Around the corner, past the Waldorf College stand and the hot tub displays, there was Tina Hoffman, spokeswoman for MidAmerican Energy Co., power walking through the building while eating something on a stick. She was working the MidAmerican building up the hill, where visitors can learn about electricity production and the giant wind turbine next door.
As I walked up the hill by MidAmerican’s building, working my way to an appointment, I crossed paths with Mary Bontrager of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, who was enjoying a few moments soaking in the action.
The lunch I attended could have provided enough interviews for the next few months, had there been time. The guys from Bubba were serving Southern fried chicken, veggie dishes and root beer floats to the likes of Vermeer’s Mary Andringa, biotech leader Joe Hrdlicka, James Deeds of KCL Engineering in West Des Moines, political mover and shaker Matt Paul, Meg Schneider of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, and DMACC President Rob Denson. They were gathered in a tent near Gammon Barn up the hill in the eastern fairgrounds. We’ll have more about the small business discussion in a separate story.
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