This year’s Business, Faith and Common Good Symposium was oriented around three related concepts: Good Goods, Good Work, and Good Wealth.  We had two panels of local business people talk about Good Goods, and then Good Work. Our Keynote speaker this year was Charles Clark from St. John’s University in New York.

In The Vocation of a Business Leader (2011) the concepts of “Good Goods”  “Good Work” and “Good Wealth” are highlighted, which respect human dignity and serve the common good, and look at business as a community of persons.

Good Goods: produce goods and services that meet genuine human needs and serve the common good, while taking responsibility for the social and environmental costs of production and the supply chain and distribution and watching for opportunities to serve the poor;

Our good goods panel was made up of Tom Deall, owner of the Bellevue Chick-fil-A, Tyler Mainquist, a financial adviser well versed in Socially Responsible Investing, and Daniel Lawse, an environmental consultant.

Good Work: organise productive and meaningful work by recognising the dignity of employees and their right and duty to flourish in their work (work is for the person rather than the other way around), and by structuring workplaces with subsidiarity that designs, equips and trusts employees to do their best work.

Our good work panel was made up of Kari Yost, HR Director for Thrasher, Dusty Davidson, founder of Flywheel and local entrepreneur, and Mark Ruch, of Object Partners.

Good Wealth:  use resources wisely in order to create both profit and well-being, to produce sustainable wealth and to distribute it justly (a just wage for employees, just prices for customers and suppliers, just taxes for the community, and just returns for owners).”

Dr. Clark discussed the ways in which a Christian anthropology (view of what it is to be human) significantly differed from the neoclassical view.  He provided a variety of views of wealth, arguing that a view of wealth which is concerned with the improved well being of society sees wealth in terms of abundance, as opposed to a scarcity view of wealth which sees wealth as possible only when you have more than others do.

Again this year’s symposium provided a great opportunity for faculty and students to engage with local business people and a renown Catholic economist.  New friendships were made, and a lot of good discussions took place.

The Business, Faith and Common Good Institute could not put on the symposium or the speaker seried without the generous support of the Creighton University office of Mission and Ministry, Heider College of Business, Anderson Convenience Markets, F&M Bank, and Dundee Bank.

 

This year’s panelists and speaker:

Tyler Mainquist, Financial Advisor at Central Financial Services

Tyler Mainquist is a Financial Planner (CFP®, CAP®, CLTC) with a specialty in Sustainable, Responsible and Impacting (SRI) investing.  He is a registered representative (RR) and investment advisory representative (IAR) with Ameritas Investment Corp. (AIC). He is a lifelong Nebraskan, and a graduate of UNL and the American College.

Daniel Lawse, Consultant at Verdis Group.

Daniel (BA, Creighton) is Principal, Chief Century Thinker at Verdis Group.  He helps organizations think long term and develop practical strategies that help them thrive today and for generations to come by helping them develop Sustainability Master Plans and implementing sustainable strategies as well as by leading regenerative leadership workshops.

Tom Deall, Owner of Chick-Fil-A Bellevue

Tom Owns the Chick-Fil-A in Bellevue.  Tom holds three MA’s: one in marriage and family counseling from U. Holy Cross, one in Military Security Policy from Air War College, and one in Theology from St. Leo U, and a BS in Psychology from U. Arizona.

1:30: “Good Work” Panel

Our Panelists will discuss the “good work” they try to produce in their unique businesses:

Dusty Davidson, Technology Entrepreneur

Dusty is best known for his work with Silicon Prairie News & Big Omaha, but have been involved with a number of things over the years, and I’m currently the co-founder and CEO of a WordPress hosting company called Flywheel. He is very  passionate about startups, especially in Omaha.

Kari Yost, Director of HR, Thrasher

Kari,  originally from Sioux City, IA. Got her BA in Human Resources and Management from Morningside College. She worked at ConAgra for 8 years, holding various positions. In 2015, she joined Thrasher because the company’s purpose, mission and values. Kari is currently the Director of Human Resources.

 

Mark Ruch, General Manager,Object Partners

Born and raised in Omaha, Mark attended Creighton Prep and then received a BA in MIS from UNO.  Currently General Manager of the OPI Omaha branch, Mark has been a software engineer for 16 years, with experience working in start-ups, Fortune 500 and midsize companies.

3pm: “Good Wealth” Keynote
Charles Clark, Economist, St. John’s (NY)

 

 

Charles Clark is Senior Fellow, Vincentian Center for Church and Society and Professor of Economics. He earned a B.A. from Fordham University and both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research, writing his dissertation under the supervision of Robert Heilbronner.  He has more than 130 publications (8 books), including Economic Theory and Natural Philosophy (1992), Pathways to a Basic Income (with John Healy) (1997); The Basic Income Guarantee: Ensuring Progress and Prosperity in the 21st Century (2002); History and Historians of Political Economy (1994); Institutional Economics and the Theory of Social Value (1995); Unemployment in Ireland (1998) and Rethinking Abundance (2005).

 

Clark finds much of contemporary economics to be ideologically driven, not empirically driven, leading to serious social problems.  He believes that applying Catholic Social Teaching to real world economics can offer  solutions that benefits everyone.