Fall 2012

Every day our Marriott associates welcome three-quarters of a million people to one of our hotels around the world. Today I wanted to share with you our story and a few things I’ve learned about making the most of opportunities.

Professor Bill Baker’s forty-two-Year Quest to teach Presentation Skills 

The lemonade stands have shuttered, the swimming pools are empty, and the yellow buses are back on the roads.

From the mid-level marketing manager to the partner in a top accounting firm, Marriott School grads agree on at least one thing: their first jobs mattered. Despite the mistakes and invariable snafus, most grads look back in awe at how much these first experiences shaped their future successes.

After standing on one foot while trying to decide which printer to buy, students hobble out of 340 TNRB with some extra credit but without the slightest clue what their answers will be used for.

When the best time to talk with Jeff Strong is while he’s on his way to an airport, you know you’ve reached a busy person. Managing a full schedule is a responsibility that Strong may have mastered as well as anyone. For several years he was traveling nearly two hundred days a yearboth domestically and internationally—as global president and chief customer officer for Johnson & Johnson. “Looking back,” he says, “I don’t think anybody could have survived that time without being organized.”

It’s said in the academic world that professors live and die by their research. We’re pleased to report that many at the Marriott School are thriving. Regular publishing in some of the industry’s top journals has put them on the leading edge of business and made some stars in their fields.

In an ever-expanding digital universe, Brad Rencher and his team at Adobe Systems Inc. navigate the Cloud like rocket men.