How do you teach teamwork, crisis management, creative problem solving, communication, and leadership—those soft skills that are essential to any top-level business position? The Texas A&M University Full-Time MBA Program at Mays Business School has a unique answer to that question: send the students for a day of exercises at Disaster City, the premier crisis training facility in the nation, located in College Station, Texas.

 On Monday (Nov. 2), the second-year MBA class will participate in a gauntlet of exercises at Disaster City to learn to deal with demanding emergency situations. The Texas Engineering Extension Service’s (TEEX) Disaster City — located about two miles from Texas A&M’s campus — is 52 acres of devastation and destruction used to teach first responders the skills necessary for search and rescue.

“This terrific collaborative effort between the MBA program and TEEX provides a valuable enrichment experience that is unique to the Texas A&M MBA program,” said Kelli Kilpatrick, director of the MBA Program. “It’s one-of-a-kind and requires students to act quickly, adjust the plan as necessary, and solve problems as a team. These are skills directly applicable to real-world business. It is an experience which we believe will equip our MBA students with leadership qualities necessary to succeed throughout their careers.”

TEEX specializes in training first responders in all disciplines. In conjunction with Mays Business School, they have developed a day of training the MBA students will never forget. During the exercise, the students will be divided into teams to complete tasks such as rescuing mock victims from a train wreck, a high speed GPS scavenger hunt, and a “slab drag,” moving a 1,200-pound block of concrete with team effort and pulleys. They will also practice responding to the media and other external audiences during crisis.

As they learn how to respond during a physical crisis, the expectation is that those skills will transfer to a business setting—from natural disasters to stock crashes and business take-overs.

Top local and national response experts will instruct and facilitate the MBA challenge. These instructors have responded to some of the largest disasters in U.S. history, including the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike, and the space shuttle Columbia incident.