SGTC Marketing Management class takes series of field trips

April 11, 2017
SGTC’s Marketing Management class is pictured on their visit to Eaton Lighting with instructor Mary Cross (second from left), SGTC Director of Business and Industry Services Paul Farr (far left), SGTC Vice President for Economic Development Wally Summers (far right), and Eaton officials.
SGTC’s Marketing Management class is pictured on their visit to Eaton Lighting with instructor Mary Cross (second from left), SGTC Director of Business and Industry Services Paul Farr (far left), SGTC Vice President for Economic Development Wally Summers (far right), and Eaton officials.

South Georgia Technical College’s Marketing Management class of the Americus campus took tours of different places in Georgia over spring semester. SGTC Marketing Management instructor Mary Cross’s class went on five different tours of Georgia businesses. The overall purpose of each of the tours was to further explain and demonstrate the lectured material from the classroom. Students were given hands-on experience from the supply channels, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.

The class first visited Belk in Americus and the store manager, Harriet Glover, gave the students a tour of the store and gave literature covering store layouts and customer service. The next tour was to the Albany Mall in Albany where the students were shown all the store fronts and spoken to about entrepreneurship by the marketing director, Debra Rowe.

Locust Grove in Atlanta was the next field trip the class went on. The students’ instructor Mary Cross gave the students a tour of the outlet store layouts and designs. Sam’s Wholesale in Albany was the next place the students visited. The store manager, Michael Miles gave the students a tour of the electronic department and explained the pricing procedures for Sam’s Wholesale and the importance of customer service.

The final field trip of the semester was to Eaton Lighting in Americus. Dwight Jones, the Plant Manager gave the students a tour of the plant and showed logistical and mechanical procedure of the company. The students were informed about product pricing with examples of price margins for manufactured parts and demonstrations of product design, development, and shipment were performed. The class was able to see the many different levels of manufacturing, starting with raw materials to shipment to the customer.

Marketing Management is offered as both a degree and diploma program on SGTC’s Americus and Crisp County Center campuses. For more information, contact Americus instructor Mary Cross at 229.931.2317 or mcross@southgatech.edu; or contact Crisp County Center campus instructor Karen Bloodworth at 229.271.4074 or kbloodworth@southgatech.edu.

SGTC’s Marketing Management program has produced SGTC GOAL winners for the past two years, with the Crisp County Center program’s Christopher McGee being named the 2017 winner recently, and the Americus campus program’s own Ashley Rodgers winning the state title for 2016.