Laine Daniel entered Arkansas State University with a gift for numbers but no clear idea what she wanted to do with that skill. After taking some accounting classes, she knew she had found her place.
“OK, I like this; I could do this,” Daniel said. “Until I got to college and started to take some finance classes, I wasn’t real sure, but I have always been very strong in numbers.”
Daniel graduated with an accounting degree and began to work as a public accountant in her hometown of McCrory. She also began working on her master’s in business administration from ASU.
In 2018, Daniel joined The DeltArk Cos., an agricultural product transportation brokerage that was founded in 2012. She now oversees the financial and accounting sides of the business. Her MBA has come in handy as she deals with real-life problems — including the COVID-19 pandemic — in an industry she was originally unfamiliar with.
“There is stuff going on all the time,” Daniel said. “I hadn’t worked in freight before — I had worked in public accounting — so when I came on there were so many moving parts from the time I got there. It is evolving continuously.”
“I have to be really on my toes and be ready to adapt.”