Des Moines Business Record
06-12-06
Students find cubicle-free summer internships
By Joe Gardyasz joegardyasz@bpcdm.com
Jake Kimmes has held summer jobs at Kum & Go convenience stores since he was 11 years old , so it’s not surprising that as a college student he applied to become an intern with the company. It’s not your typical summer internship, however.
Kimmes, who will be a sophomore this fall at Loras College in Dubuque, will spend his summer leading a fiveperson “Go Team” that will represent Kum & Go throughout the state. As one of 16 teams that will work within the company’s 13state marketing area, they’ll be doing everything from cleaning windshields and pumping gas for customers at the stores to handing out coupons and product samples at county fairs and other community events.
“It’s very upbeat,” said Kimmes, whose team was visiting stores in West Des
Moines last week. Each team appears at two to three events per day, with store visits scheduled as well.
“Their schedules are pretty busy,” said Courtney Lansink of West Des Moinesbased Krause Gentle Corp., who said she believes the company is the first in the convenience-store industry to launch this type of promotion.
The company recruited at colleges throughout the Midwest and put the successful candidates through a one-week training program. Each will be paid an hourly wage for a 40-hour workweek. Kimmes, who plans on majoring in management with a minor in marketing, was given the responsibility of recruiting his own team members from among the candidates.
As companies launch these kinds of feet-on-the-street marketing initiatives to reach out to customers, it presents additional opportunities for marketing and business majors to get hands-on experience outside the usual corporate setting.
“There is always a certain segment of students interested in promotions,” said
Kathryn Wieland , director of business career services at Iowa State
University , whose office placed two ISU students with Kum & Go for its Go
Teams. Overall, it’s fairly common for retailers to recruit college students for marketing promotions, she said.
Of the 534 internships her office tracked last summer, 137 of those were marketing-related positions offered by about 75 companies. About 60 percent of

those internships were offered within the state.
“Generally, academic credit is not given,” Wieland said. “It depends on the employer, but generally speaking (promotions internships) are not done for credit.”
From the univers ity’s perspective, “what we’re really looking for are ones in which the work is somehow related to (the student’s) discipline,” she said. “We’d like to see them get experience related to their education. We’re looking for supervision and training. And really, the critical part, in our minds, also is feedback on the student’s professional development. That’s the back end: Are they telling them how they’ve done professionally?”
For Erin Deters, a marketing major who graduated in May from Iowa State, interacting with the fans at Principal Park during Iowa Cubs games is part of a season-long internship that began in March.
“I had this huge dream; I always wanted to work in baseball,” said Deters, whose responsibilities include taking photographs of fans who participate in the between-inning promotions such as shooting T-shirts from the ICubs’ bazooka bats.
“We throw out about 90 T-shirts a night, between the two bazooka bats and the fun guns,” she said. “People love free T-shirts, so everybody gets really excited.”
There is also an office side to the job “where I get to see the different parts of selling and sales of sports for huge clients,” Deters said, “and know what it’s like to be in sales in the sports industry.” Her duties include documenting proof of performance for approximately 300 advertising clients, as well as building a marketing kit for the next season.
Deters said she hasn’t decided yet whether she’d like to branch out to different types of promotions work or stay in sports.
“I’d love to stay with the I-Cubs organization if they have an opening,” she said.
“I’d love to stay in the Des Moines area and get involved in event planning or public relations. It’s amazing how many different things I’ve gotten involved with through the Iowa Cubs.
”
Kimmes, whose father works for Krause Gentle and told him about the internship opportunity, said he also plans to apply for a full-time position after he graduates.
And if he applies with other companies, the experience “will look good for other opport unities that are presented in the future,” he said.