The Marketing Club headed to Kansas City in April for their annual Spring trip. Tours included the Hunt Midwest Subtropolis, Hallmark, and Boulevard Brewery. The Subtropolis is the world's largest underground business complex with nearly 5,000,000 sq. ft. of leasable space, 6.65 miles of lighted paved roads, and 394 truck docks. The space is a former limestone mine that employed the room and pillar method of mining. The 25 foot square pillars provide even spacing to the 40 ft. rooms that are converted to build-to-suit facilities. It put a new perspective to warehousing for the students on the trip. At the Hallmark center students visited with the Director of Marketing for the Visitor's Center, viewed a film on how Hallmark keeps creativity alive in their artists, observed an artist create a design for a card, talked with a press operator and watched an actual card printing process, and enjoyed turning 42 inches of ribbon into a bow with a bow maker machine. The final tour of the trip was at Boulevard Brewery. Boulevard is a small independently owned brewery whose mission is to brew European-like brews. They do not compete directly with the major breweries, but rather target a niche for those who want a more European style of beer. The tour included the production process from start to finish, the fitness area for employees, and the social room available for meetings, wedding receptions, or other large gatherings. As luck would have it, the Minnesota Twins were in town to play the Royals so the group attended the Saturday evening game. Although it was only 36 degrees outside, a good time was had by all and the Twins won!
