News Archive
Bulls Business Community Students Tour Melitta, Talk Corporate Culture, Coffee
By Keith Morelli
TAMPA (March 12, 2020) -- Members of the Muma College of Business Bulls Business Community toured Melitta’s Clearwater headquarters, which houses all of the company’s North America operations, in what may have been a coffee lover’s dream-come-true. The Germany-based company manufactures, markets and sells coffee filters, coffee and pour-over coffee brewing systems in the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
The students, who are high-achieving, declared business-major freshmen, checked out the offices and the coffee-filter manufacturing plant and listened to talks from a variety of executives including the heads of the sales, management and information systems departments.
“They had a global intern from Germany who shared her experiences with Melitta as well,” said Magdala Saint-Louis, Bulls Business Community adviser. “We also heard from the CEO of the North America operations, Marty Miller, who shared his perspective and answered a ton of questions.”
The purpose of the Bulls Business Community tours is to show students where future employment opportunities are and what positions they may find themselves filling, depending on their degrees, Saint-Louis said. First-year students have the opportunity to attend six different tours.
“My hope is that these students will have a better understanding of what they can do with their majors and if their major is the best fit for them,” she said. “Business is a broad field with so much variety, each of these tours provides a different perspective of the field.”
Juliana Dunlap was one of the students on the tour. She was impressed with the company and its culture.
“It was fascinating to learn of the corporate culture,” she said. “I thought the tour of the production facility was enlightening. I learned a lot watching the filters being produced and going through quality-assurance testing.
“I was also proud to learn that the coffee-filter founder was female,” she said. “I enjoyed listening to every department and how they collaborated with each other, especially with the implementation of an enterprise resource planning system.”
Samuel Micio said the tour was well executed from beginning to end.
“The speakers were excellent in building rapport,” he said. “They pitched the company well and were informative about important aspects of business not discussed in class.”
The Bulls Business Community is among the most active living learning centers on campus and offers innovative learning opportunities and programs such as “Business Etiquette,” “Dress for Success,” "Résumé Building" along with the off-site company tours. Students also enjoy special networking opportunities with alumni, other students and business professionals.
For some of the students on the Melitta tour, visiting a large company headquarters was something new.
“I loved it,” said Ayla Baker Kural. “The people were so welcoming and entertained all of our many questions with really good answers. And I thought it was very generous of them to give us gift bags at the end.”