College of Business Advisory Board Member Rodney Rahl, Marketing and Technology Strategist, NFM
One reason Rodney Rahl loves serving on the College of Business Advisory Board is the amazing stories he hears about students and faculty. Another reason is that he has his own amazing story to tell.
Rahl is the marketing and technology strategist at NFM and earned his Master of Business Administration from Bellevue University. At one point as a student, he was having a hard time juggling the demands of school and career, which included his own real estate business in addition to his full-time job at NFM. College of Business Professor David Levy heard Rahl was struggling so he visited him in his office at NFM for tutoring sessions.
“And I wasn’t even in his class,” Rahl said, still amazed by the gesture. “He was doing it for me when I wasn’t even his student at the time.”
As an Advisory Board member, Rahl enjoys hearing updates on the college and how innovation remains at the core of its mission of preparing students to lead and make a difference in their organizations. At NFM, he witnessed first-hand how a business degree from Bellevue University led to innovation in supply chain management. His colleague Scott Hansen earned an MBA with a Supply Chain Management concentration and managed NFM’s logistics throughout the pandemic. Hansen and his colleagues rose to the challenge, Rahl said, and he knows a business degree from Bellevue University made a difference.
“Supply chain is a little better now, but it’s created 100 new challenges for those teams. But Bellevue University works to stay ahead of those changes and incorporates them into the learning,” Rahl said. “The faculty are engaged in the real world and not just teaching from a dated textbook. The world today must be adaptive to rapid changes, and I feel Bellevue University prepares students for that very thing. ”He went on to say, “I’ve seen the College of Business grow in a dozen different ways during my time on the advisory board, but it’s growth that has always focused on student outcomes. They are there to make people’s lives better. Everyone from the student who is the first in their family to attend college to the students doing Ph.D.-level work. “