BYU Marriott earned five top-10 rankings in the Princeton Reviews 2027 business school rankings. The distinctions highlight the schools continued excellence among 208 institutions nationwide.

What began as a difficult search for an internship led strategy student Charlie Rhodes to an opportunity with a UK-based nonprofit and later to a conference with members of the UK House of Lords. At the gathering, Rhodes presented on religious freedom in Nigeriaan issue he explored during his internship with The FoRB (freedom of religion or belief) Foundation.

Working on the Nigeria project also gave Rhodes the chance to connect BYU engineering students with FoRB to bring solar power to communities serving kidnapping survivors. The experience showed me that anyone can make a difference if theyre willing to just put their foot forward, says Rhodes, whose experience with FoRB helped him land a consulting internship with McKinsey & Company.

MISM graduate Tanner Scott Atkin piped Highland Cathedral to honor graduates at the April 2026 BYU Marriott convocation. I love how the tune feels celebratory and triumphant, he says. Its one of the most iconic pieces in modern bagpipe music.

Atkin learned to play bagpipes from his father fifteen years ago, and the two continue to perform together with the Salt Lake Scots Pipe Band as a way of honoring their heritage. Atkin is now pursuing a career as a software engineer.

A strong foundation has helped Cougar Capital reach new heights since Gary Williams launched the program in 2005. Over the past two decades, MBA students have built lasting relationships while gaining firsthand experience in venture capital and private equity.

The fun (and the fund) come with serious work. Students source opportunities, conduct due diligence, evaluate startups, and make investment decisions for the donation-based, evergreen fund, which reinvests its returns to support future cohorts. Each new class inherits both the fund and a tight-knit network of alumni.

An elephant sanctuary in Thailand was just one memorable stop for Lara Seager (left) during a healthcare leadership study abroad. Students visited a range of medical facilities and met with leadersincluding Cambodias minister of healthacross India and Southeast Asia to gain new perspectives on patient care.

The healthcare leaders we met are pioneers in paving the way, but theyre also humbleand thats such an important quality that we can learn from them, says Seager, who is completing BYU Marriotts healthcare leadership minor and plans to study nursing. In every place we visited, I saw healthcare workers treating the whole personlooking beyond the diagnosis to the patients emotional and spiritual health.

This was the first study abroad hosted by the Healthcare Leadership Collaborative, which partnered with the Whitmore Global Business Center and the

Kennedy Center to organize the trip.

Justin R. Hales has always wanted to be a finisher. Long before he began working on Wall Street, he encountered a poem in President Thomas S. Monsons talk Finishers Wanted that stayed with Justin for years: Stick to your task til it sticks to you; / Beginners are many, but enders are few.

Persistence has been a recurring theme throughout Justins life. When I set my sights on something, I see it through, he says. Justin reapplied to BYU after initially being rejected, patiently waited for the woman of his dreams, and bypassed campus recruiters to pitch himself directly to Wall Street firms. This same persistence applies every day in his work at Goldman Sachs in Chicago, where he leads consumer services investment banking.

Reaching Justins level of success in investment banking just requires a tremendous amount of grit, says Crawford Gates, whom Justin mentored at Goldman Sachs. Its a demanding profession that requires a lot of tenacity at every stage. When I first met Justin, he had recently joined Goldman as an associate, and he was proving himself at that level, finding where he could lean in and succeed. I was impressed by how he managed that whole process.

In a field that may seem to be all about cold, hard numbers, Justin sees the humanity. Its very personal, very human work, says Justin, who was part of the first official cohort of finance majors at BYU Marriott. At the end of the day, Im a connectora facilitator matching people with different needs and objectives. Ive always loved people.

Justin has worked hard to get to where he is, often against the odds. But he is quick to credit the opportunities, faith, family, and mentors who have helped guide him: Ive been blessed to have people take chances on me, he says.

Raised by goodly parents who supported me in everything I ever did or tried, Justin describes his childhood as idyllic. My family has been in Las Vegas for three generations, he says. He loved growing up there, surrounded by extended family and a big group of friends. As the youngest of three children, Justin admits he often got away with more than his siblings. Still, his family joked that he was like Switzerland: I tended to get along with everyone, he saysa trait his parents say carried beyond their family.

His dad, Robert Hales, says Justin has always had a way of making people feel seen. That is one of his greatest qualities. He was always kind to everyone, from the popular kid to the kid hardly anyone talked to.

Robert was a real estate investor, and Justins mom, Gaylynn, worked as an elementary school teacher. She and her mother-in-law (Justins grandmother) cotaught a second-grade class together. We called ourselves the Hales Angels, Gaylynn recalls with a laugh. When Justin joined their class, she remembers a newspaper reporter asking him his favorite part about having his mom and his grandma for teachers. His answer: the snacks.

Being physically smaller than other kids his age was a constant source of worry and concern for me, remembers Justin. He loved sports, especially basketball, but he was cut from the junior high team three times. I laugh about it now, but it was a huge deal to me then, he says. I wished I was taller and bigger. I think that shaped my personality in that I was more aware that people had attributes they didnt like about themselves. That awareness led me to make more friends and help people see the best in themselves and just be interested in them, which has served me well professionally.

As college approached, BYU felt like a natural choice for Justin, whose older brother and sister had both attended. But he didnt get in. It stung, Justin says. I wanted to give up on my plans to go to BYU. In the meantime, he served a mission in Peru.

His first assignment was a mining town near Cuzco called Espinar, says his mission president Stephen Tyler, a retired judge and BYU Marriott accounting alum. At an elevation of 13,000 feet, its one of the highest places in the world where the Church has missionaries, Tyler explains. Its cold all year because of the elevation, and the missionaries slept in down sleeping bags in a room so cold that water would freeze.

Tyler became an important mentor to Justin. President Tyler really believed in me, Justin says. He saw a lot of potential that I hadnt recognized, and for the first time, I felt empowered to set big goals and go achieve them. Noting Justins interest in business, Tyler encouraged him to reapply to BYU. A second rejection arrived. Still, Justin wasnt ready to give up. Hes very driven, says Tyler. You can tell by the way he sticks to things.

With his sights still set on BYU after his mission, Justin moved to Provo and enrolled in classes as a visiting student. Those classes, along with Spanish credits he tested out of, allowed him to apply again as a transfer student. Justin remembers receiving the acceptance email on his BlackBerry while standing outside Brick Oven. It was such a happy moment. At that point in my life, it meant so much to me to get in,

he says.

Justin was initially interested in accounting but ended up applying to join the first class in BYU Marriotts new finance major. It was not smooth for me to get into the finance major, but with some persistence and personal advocating, I was fortunate and got in, he remembers.

In BYUs finance program, Justin found a mentor in Kim Smithan adjunct professor who had worked at Goldman Sachs, served as an area seventy, and then moved back to Utah when he got Parkinsons disease. He wanted his students to pursue careers that provided them with the chance to bless others, Justin remembers.

Smith encouraged Justin to look beyond Utah for job opportunities. The Church needs people in New York City and Chicago and Los Angeles, Justin says, and I felt a calling to be one of those people who could be a trailblazer to open doors for other BYU alumni. When Smith passed away in 2023, Justin and a handful of fellow students created an endowment in his honor. It was the least we could do, considering what he gave us.

When Justin landed on investment banking as a career path, he was 100 percent in. He served as president of BYUs Investment Banking Association during his senior year. While still a student, he flew himself out to New York City and cold-emailed professionals from skyscraper lobbies to make connectionsa tactic that helped earn him an internship.

Justins persistence paid off in his personal life too. During his time at BYU, he took the same statistics class as Camille Mabey, a family friend from his home ward in Las Vegas. The large lecture classa prerequisite for his business major and for her nursing programwas held in the Joseph Smith Building (JSB) auditorium.

She was very studious and wouldnt talk to me during class, Justin says. Camille was focused on doing well in school, not on dating or socializing. Hoping to spend more time with her, Justin often walked Camille to the library after class. I would actually just turn around and jog back to the JSB because I had a class there right after stats, Justin says.

During those walks, Camilles interest in Justin came organically, because we were hanging out and enjoying each others company, she says. He showed a lot of interest in getting to know me, not just in a romantic way, but because he likes to get to know people. Thats just his personality.

They went on a few dates, but Camille wanted to keep it casual while applying to the nursing major. When Camille was ready, she and Justin began dating seriously, and they married in 2013.

When Camille and Justin married, Justin was about to begin a two-year analyst position in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group at Credit Suisse, a Swiss investment bank, in New York Citybut Camille had another year left in the nursing program at BYU. Recognizing that persistence often requires difficult short-term trade-offs, they decided to live apart until Camilles graduation. She flew out to visit him every few weeks for a long weekend, and they spoke on the phone daily.

Each of us had a goal we wanted to achieve, and this was the path it required, Camille says. Justins analyst program could be considered the financial version of medical residency, with hard work and long hours. The expectation was that you work around the clock, says Justin, who put in 80 to 100 hours per week.

Wall Street didnt hire often from BYU, Justin says. Most people in my analyst class were from Ivy Leagues. I felt like I had to work harder and be even more dedicated. But that intensity also gave him a crash course in high-stakes deals. I was working with companies that were being bought, sold, or going public. So in my early 20s, I was in the room with a CEO and the leadership team of a company, working on a transaction and drinking it all in.

He and Camille, who was loving her rotation at the Primary Childrens NICU, cheered each other on from afar. Justin has a lot of tenacitya wont quit personality, which helped a lot during those early years when we just had to get through it, Camille says. He can put his head down and get to work, knowing it will be worth it.

After a year and a half on different sides of the US, Camille graduated and joined Justin in New York City. Though challenging, the time apart taught them important life lessons and brought them closer together as a couple. When the program at Credit Suisse ended, Justin was recruited to BDT Capital Partners (now BDT & MSD Partners) in Chicago.

The firm focuses exclusively on family and founder-owned companies. A lot of the families that they work with are very well known, Justin says. I had the chance to meet Warren Buffett. I had the chance to be in a lot of rooms and situations that I didnt feel like I belonged in, which has kind of been a theme in my life.

Neither Camille nor Justin had any prior ties to the Midwest, but they were excited for a fresh start in a new placethis time together from the beginning. They moved downtown and attended their new ward, which was held in an elementary school. We immediately felt at home, Justin says.

Camille worked in the NICU at Northwestern Memorial Hospital until their first child, Jack, was born in 2018. Now eight years old, Jack is followed by Annie (age 5), Caroline (age 2), and twin baby girls on the way. Parenthood was an adjustment, though. I was already used to not sleeping, so that was par for the course, Justin says with a laugh. It was a comfort that Camille had so much experience in caring for newborns, especially when their youngest spent some time in the NICU. We made a good team as new parents, Justin says.

When an opportunity to interview at Goldman Sachs came up, Justin jumped at the chance. Goldman had always been a firm that I admired, he says. Working there was like the equivalent of playing for the Yankees. The timing was right too, as Goldman Sachs was looking to build a team focused on middle-market transactionsan area Justin had spent his career working in.

I love seeing the companies I get to work with in the wild, Justin says. The very first transaction I ever worked on was with Chiquita. He still makes sure to pass by the banana section every time hes in a grocery store.

Justin has been at Goldman Sachs since 2019.

The company is an incredible place to build a career, he says. He started as an associate, guiding analysts in preparing the financial analysis and marketing materials needed to market or sell a business. His work focused on consumer services, such as residential service providers, auto services companies, and multiunit service providersfor instance, a chain of gyms.

After a year and a half, Justin was promoted to be a vice president where he was squarely in the middle of the management hierarchy, becoming the transaction quarterback and interacting on a day-to-day basis with the client and potential investors or buyers.

It was around this time that Justin first met Crawford Gates, who had joined Goldman Sachs for a two-year program similar to the one Justin had completed at Credit Suisse. Gates remembers the day Justin first reached out to welcome a fellow BYU alum. It gave me a lot of confidence and made me feel like I had a support system, Gates says.

Now a managing director, Justin sits face-to-face with clients making their most consequential business decisions, such as selling or going public. Its a really big career and life event for them, and its fun to be part of that, Justin says. The process can be emotional and intense for his clients, who may be at the helm of a multigenerational family business or an organization they grew from the ground up and who must make decisions with lasting impact for themselves and their companies.

Justin has worked on many scenarios like this, such as helping Quick Quack Car Wash (founded by BYU alumni) sell a significant stake to global investment firm KKR or guiding multinational corporation Shell on its divestment of Jiffy Lube. Justin enjoys helping his clients deliver great outcomes that not only impact the CEO but every employee within the organization.

Senior-level investment banking is a people business, says Gates, who now works in private equity at Northrim Horizon in Arizona. Justin is just a gifted connector and communicator. I dont think I know a more natural extrovert, but never in a way that feels rushed or forced. I think thats part of why hes really good with people.

Today, the Hales family is happy and thriving in Winnetka, a suburb of Chicago. Justin coaches his sons baseball team, the family enjoys watching professional sports and taking walks to the lake after dinner, and neighborhood kids are always knocking on the door to play.

Justin is quick to invite BYU grads to join him: Ive been successful in recruiting people to come to Chicago and start their career. It has big-city opportunities with the sustainability of suburban life, he says.

As a business student, Justin enjoyed visits and lectures from members of BYU Marriotts National Advisory Council (NAC). It was fun to learn from others who had gone before and to hear how they navigated things I would eventually face, like how to conduct myself at a firm happy hour and how to navigate being the first in my peer group to get married and have a kid, he says.

Justin had always considered the NAC members examples and mentors, so when he got the invitation to join last year, I didnt even have to think about it, he says. He enjoys the chance to stand on the other side of the questions he and his classmates once asked. Ive tried some things that work, and Ive tried some things that dont, and Im happy to share and be a resource for people.

For Justin, being a finisher now means helping others keep going too. Hopefully I can be encouraging and show that even if you have a bunch of setbacksif you dont get into BYU right away, or if you dont get everything right just out of the gateits okay. Its about being resilient, being optimistic, and sticking with it.

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Sara Smith Atwood is an associate editor of

and lives in Orem, Utah, with her family.

Photography by Bradley Slade

NOTES

At BYU Marriotts convocation ceremonies on April 24, 2026, speakers Brian Murphy and Todd Sears invited graduates to consider the hallmarks of a Christlike leader and the principles that can serve as a compass along the way. The following remarks have been condensed and adapted for print.

Today is more than the end of your academic journey at BYU. Today is the beginning of the influence you will have on the world.

The vision of BYU Marriott is simple but profound: to transform the world through Christlike leadership. That is an ambitious vision. Most business schools aspire to produce successful executives, innovative entrepreneurs, or skilled analysts. But this school aims at something higher.

It aims to produce leaders who change the world not just through intelligence or ambition but through character. The mission of BYU Marriott is to develop leaders of faith, intellect, and character. Each of those attributes matters, but the real power comes when all three work together.

Most business schools would leave out the first onefaithentirely. But this institution believes that the most powerful leaders are not simply skilled, they are grounded in faith. They are people whose decisions come from conviction, not convenience.

The world does not need more leaders who are merely clever. It needs leaders who are trustworthy. It needs leaders who lift others. It needs leaders who recognize that success without integrity is failure in disguise. That is the kind of leadership you have been preparing for.

The school also teaches four values that provide a blueprint for your career and your life: faith, integrity, respect, and excellence.

is not always a word that appears in conversations about business leadership, but it should be. Faith is what allows leaders to move forward when outcomes are uncertain.

Every meaningful decision in life involves uncertainty and, therefore, faith.

Starting a company requires faith. Hiring someone requires faith. Investing capital requires faith. Leading people requires faith.

But the faith that matters most is faith in God: the belief that your life has purpose and that your work can be part of something larger than yourself. When leaders carry that perspective into their careers, they begin to see people differently. Employees are no longer just resources. Customers are no longer just transactions. Competitors are no longer just obstacles. Instead, every person becomes someone with divine worth and potential.

True integrity shows itself when the pressure is high, the stakes are real, and the shortcut is tempting. Every generation of leaders eventually faces a moment when they must decide what kind of leaders they will become.

I will share one of those moments from my career. My firm won a large mandate to manage money for a billionaire family. Due to the importance of the relationship, we agreed to provide certain discounts, and I checked every quarter when I reviewed the financials that these credits were properly reflected.

About nine years into the relationship, my finance team switched accounting systems, and we also had a new chief financial officer. One day the CFO entered my office looking as if she had seen a ghost. She said that while transferring this client to the new accounting system, she learned that the quarterly credit had never been paid in the last nine yearsa mistake that amounted to more than $1 million.

I called the head of the family and asked if I could visit him in his home state. He agreed, and we met at a restaurant that had been a bank building for more than 100 years before being converted to a restaurant. I went to the meeting fully expecting to lose this client.

When it was time to discuss the purpose of the lunch, I noticed a sign on the wall that read: Do right and fear no man! I asked the company owner if he would mind me taking a picture of the sign since I felt it was profound. He looked at the sign and said that was how he had always done business. I agreed, saying that was also how we managed our firm.

Then I explained the issue and how we found it, apologized, and told the man I expected to lose his business as a result of this inexcusable error. I also told him I had a check in my pocket for the full amount of the error as well as 10 percent interest compounded annually.

He was disappointed but understood how honest mistakes can be made. He thanked me for bringing it to his attention because they never would have found it themselves. He also thanked me for not making him ask for interest and for offering to pay a generous rate.

What he did next shocked me: He said that because of our behavior, he was going to increase the size of their account with us. I had not expected that outcome, but I certainly was pleased with it.

We must act with integrity at all times, and when we do, we discover that integrity does not limit opportunity. It builds trust and increases opportunitytrust is one of the most valuable currencies any leader

can possess.

You will soon work with people from every background imaginable, and this school teaches a simple truth: Every person you encounter possesses divine potential.

When leaders truly believe that, they listen better. They collaborate better. They build organizations where people feel seen, valued, and empowered to contribute.

I was fortunateand a bit naivewhen I started my first investment firm at 30 years old. I knew it would take tremendous work, tender mercies, and the assistance of many to make it thrive. During a project with one of our first clients, we worked closely with a junior accountant who was a terrific person, but she had little experience in alternative investments and quickly found herself overwhelmed. My team saw her divine nature. She was super capable, but there was little time to prove herself and preserve her job.

My team stepped up big, tutoring her late at night and assisting her with complex projects. As we suspected, she quickly learned the industry and its nuances; she thrived and was promoted several times.

That friendship, which was based on trust and mutual appreciation, proved pivotal years later as this accountant supported my desire to start another firm. Not only did she become my firms first client, but she also allocated $1 billion of capital for us to invest. She is a friend to this day and is easily one of the five most influential people in my career.

Treat everyone with respectregardless of their title and whether they can do something for youbecause they deserve it.

Excellence is not perfection but continual improvement. It is the habit of asking

Excellence compounds over time, just like knowledge and interest. Graduates, the world you are entering is incredibly dynamic. The most impor-tant question is not

? The most important question is

Titles come and go. Markets rise and fall. Industries change and even disappear. But character endures. When faith, intellect, and character come together in one individual, magic happens. That person becomes a force for good.

The impact you create will not only be measured in companies built and profits earned. It will be measured in people influenced, employees mentored, communities strengthened, families supported, and lives improved.

You may never fully see the ripple effects of your choices. Every act of integrity, every moment of courage, every decision to lift someone else creates influence far beyond what you can imagine.

Graduates, you join a global network of leaders from this remarkable schoolpeople who carry the same mission, values, and aspiration to transform the world. The world you enter today faces real challenges: economic uncertainty, technological disruption, social division, and war. But it also faces something equally powerful: youa leader who has been prepared not only with skills but also with principles.

As you leave this campus, I invite you to remember four simple things:

If you do these things consistently, you will become leaders who transform the world through Christlike leadership, and there is no greater legacy than that.

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Brian P. Murphy is the founder and former managing member of Portfolio Advisors, LLC, an investment firm that specializes in private equity, real estate, and credit investments and manages more than $44 billion in assets. A BYU business management graduate who earned an MBA from Columbia University, Murphy is a member of the board of directors for Future Standards and a senior advisor to Pelion Venture Partners. Murphy serves with his wife, Louise, on the BYU Marriott National Advisory Council, the BYU Presidents Leadership Council, and multiple charitable boards.

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Today you will leave here not only with a BYU Marriott degree but also with an expectation to uphold: to embody Christlike leadership.

One of my favorite Bible stories is when Jesus calls Peter and Andrew to leave their nets and follow Him to become fishers of men. A few years ago for my birthday, my wife, Stacey, printed a photo of that scene onto a six-foot-wide canvas.

After we hung the canvas in our family room, we noticed something unexpected. In the distant background, tucked into the waves, there was what looked like a motorboat. Clearly there were no motorboats on the Sea of Galilee 2,000 years ago, but Ive come to prefer this idea because it is a reminder that Christs invitation is just as relevant todayeven in the era

of motorboats.

Similarly, the leadership model youve been taught here is not a relic of the pastit is the most effective way to lead. Christlike leadership is not about something you do; it is about someone you become. That is what it means to lead by becoming.

So how do we begin the process of becoming a Christlike leader? I believe the foundation is humility. Earlier this year, President Dallin H. Oaks gave a simple challenge: increase our humility.

But there is a paradox in that phrase. How do we increase a quality that requires us to decrease ourselves?

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave us the answer when he said, We dont discover humility by thinking less

ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less

ourselves.

In a world focused on status and power, humility shifts us toward stewardship. It calibrates us and keeps us aligned with Jesus Christ.

Please do not mistake humility for weakness. A humble leader still sets high standards, makes hard decisions, and holds people accountable, just as the Savior did.

In 1970, leadership consultant Robert Greenleaf published his essay The Servant as Leader. This concept of servant-leadership has been rooted in Walmarts culture from the very beginning. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, would regularly visit stores and meet with associates. Typically, instead of standing where he could be most visible, he would pull out a yellow notepad to write down what

told

. That simple act was in harmony with the Saviors teaching that whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.

Ive seen servant-leadership from many leaders at Walmart over the years: Leaders who park in the farthest spot so customers can have the closest ones and executives who spend 30 minutes rounding up shopping carts or picking up trash before ever walking through the front doors.

Just a few months after joining Walmart nearly 15 years ago, I learned a powerful lesson. I was in a meeting with about 30 people, including the companys CEO and CFO. I was excitedand nervousbecause I hadnt met either one of them yet.

During the meeting, I was surprised to be recognized for a project I had worked on. Both the CEO and CFO added their praise. Trying to contain my excitement, I said something like, Thank you very much. Im so grateful to be part of this company. I walked out of that room on cloud nine.

But as I was walking back to my office, my boss said, Todd, you deserve all the accolades you just received. That project wouldnt have been successful without you. But you missed a moment. You should have given everyone else the credit, even though you were the one who deserved it the most.

In an instant, I went from elated to deflated, but that experience was a becoming moment for me. My boss helped me recalibrate.

As we work to become Christlike leaders, humility also helps us surrender our ego and rely on the Lord. Several years ago, the leader of a new finance team at Walmart approached me about a promotion with a significant title. Within minutes, I realized it wasnt the right fit and chose not to pursue it.

As soon as I got back to my office, a trusted peer found me and said, I heard you met with that leader. I dont think thats a good opportunity. You shouldnt take it, and dont let him convince you otherwise.

It was reassuring to have my colleague validate my decision. However, three weeks later the official announcement came out. Guess who got the job? Yes, that same peer.

I was devastatednot because I wanted the job but because I felt betrayed. For weeks, that feeling consumed me and started to impact my performance at work. Eventually, I realized the only way forward was to take it to the Lord. In prayer, I told Him I was giving that weight to Him. Then I did something that might seem unusual. I stood in front of a mirror and acted out lifting that weight off my shoulders and handing it over to Him. Immediately, the actual weight and the feelings of betrayal disappeared.

Five years later, this same peer sought me out to apologize. He explained that he had sincerely meant what he had told me, but he was eventually persuaded to take the job. He said he had felt horrible for five years because of what he had said to me.

That experience was another becoming moment for me. Never underestimate the power of the Atonement to help you become a Christlike leader.

Those experiences helped prepare me for one of the most defining moments of my careerone in which Christlike leadership was the only way forward.

More than 10 years ago, Walmart asked me and my family to move to So Paulo, the same city where I served a full-time mission. But the assignment was daunting: I was to lead three impossible projects that had defeated two leaders before me.

Before I left for Brazil, several high-level executives gave me the same advice: The first thing you need to do is find the bad apples on the team and get rid of them. If you dont change the people, youll fail just like the leaders before you.

I arrived and went looking for the bad apples. I started with one-on-one conversations with each team member, but I didnt ask about KPIs or what had gone wrong. Instead, I asked about their backgrounds, families, hopes, frustrations, and what they needed from me.

It quickly became clear that they had never interacted with a leader in that way. In fact, two of them told me I was the first leader who even knew their names.

I couldnt figure out who the bad apples were, so I didnt make any changes to the team. Instead, I chose to take on the highest-stakes assignment of my career with the same people who had failed under two previous leaders. I knew I could not succeed on my own, so once again I turned to the Lord. I started each day with prayer and scripture study. Then I went into the office and tried my best to help my team become their best.

Progress started slowly. Then something remarkable happened: The team didnt just improvethey transformed. Once they knew that I cared about them, they rose up and began to lead themselves.

We made extraordinary progress and completed the first project ahead of schedule. We then tackled the second and third projects. All three projects were completed in 18 monthshalf the expected time.

Afterward, I met with the executives who had advised me to change the team. They asked me what I was most proud of. I responded, Im most proud that we did it with the same team that failed before. I didnt change a single person on the team.

The executives were shocked. I continued, I didnt fire anyone. The team wasnt the problem. We had a leadership problem.

That experience taught me that when we strive to become Christlike leaderswhen we truly see and serve othersordinary people can do extraordinary things.

In addition to living in Brazil, Ive traveled all around the world for work. Through all of those travels, I have learned one undeniable truth: Christlike leadership does not need a translator. It

resonates in every culture, in every language, and with every generation.

Graduates, your accomplishments are already impressive, and you will accomplish even more in the years ahead. As you walk out of these doors, choose carefully how you measure success. Do not measure it by the wealth you accumulate or the titles you add to your signature. Instead, measure it by who you are becoming.

Christlike leadership is not about something you do; it is about someone you become. I am still on the journey of becoming a Christlike leader myself. At best, Ive probably only reached the first grade, but my career has played a powerful role in that journey by helping me continually recalibrate.

Just like the motorboat in the background of the canvas in our home, Christlike leadership is for your time, for your career, and for who you are becoming.

Celebrate this moment and go forth and lead by becoming. Transform yourself, others, and the world.

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Todd Sears serves as executive vice president and chief financial officer for Walmart US. He has held several senior finance and operational leadership roles across Walmart and Sams Club since joining the company in 2011. A BYU Marriott graduate who completed both a bachelors degree and a masters degree in accounting, Sears began his career at Ernst & Young and earned a CPA.

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Illustrations by Richard Allen

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Notes

My wife has accused me of being married to the Tanner Building, jokes Alvan Williamson, who recently handed over his keys after 20 years as a building-care specialist at BYU Marriott.

Williamson has kept the 200,000-square-foot Tanner running smoothly through floods and fire alarms, packed conferences, and late-night emergencies. Home to more than 150 faculty offices and 30 classrooms, the building welcomes thousands of people to learn, lead, and belongmany without realizing the behind-the-scenes work that makes it possible.

With a shift that stretched into the evening, Williamson spent years walking empty classrooms and making his rounds through 37,000 square feet of hallways after dark. (He insists he never encountered a ghost.) His favorite spot in the building is the NAC room on the seventh floor, with its view of the mountains.

As Williamson now rides off into retirement in his side-by-side, he reflects on a career spent caring for both a building and the people who use it.

Ive seen a lot of changes over the years. I actually applied for a custodial position at the Conference Center but didnt get it. A couple weeks later, the manager over BYU custodial called me about a position in the Tanner Building. Shortly after I started the job, construction began on the Tanner Building addition. That was pretty trying because a lot of the building was closed off.

As an essential worker, I was here through COVID. Most of the students went home, but a few stayed, and we just did what we could. When COVID was ending and people started returning to the building, it was hard to hire employees.

In the summer we do a lot of deep cleaningthings that we cant normally get to because classes are going on. I always looked forward to fall when school started.

My job was a good fit because I like service. I like to care for people. Christ is in our lives, and thats who we serve; through serving Him, we serve everybody else.

I normally had 11 to 13 students working on the team. Five of those students locked up the building at night and worked weekends. Since I supervised them, I was basically on call seven days a week.

One day, I had a girl come inshe was a Japanese studentand she asked, Do you need help? I hired her, and two weeks later, she asked, Do you need more help? She brought all her friends. I ended up hiring seven Japanese students, which was fun because I served my mission in Japan.

About 10 years ago, I fell off a ladder, broke seven ribs, and was in the hospital for 11 days. When I came back, the students didnt want me doing much of anything. I had to tell them, I need to do my job.

This year, I made sloppy joes for the students, but some years I do a waffle party. The rule is I make waffles until I run out of flour or they quit eating.

Usually, I run out of flour first.

My team did all the setups, which varied every day. Some days we had as many as seven events. On Saturday nights, wed set up for church on Sunday.

I learned that you have to be flexiblea lot of this job was figuring out what works. People just think rooms are bigger than they really are. Id look at setup requests and think, That wont fit. So Id go to the Deans Office and say, How about doing it this way?

We saw all kinds of events over the years. One was in 2010 when a big choir was supposed to perform at the Provo Tabernacle, but it caught on fire and the concert was moved here. We set up around 600 chairs throughout the atriums, and about 1,500 people came. The concert actually sounded great on the upper floors of the Tanner Building.

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In 2023, BYU Marriott Professor Lisa Jones Christensen was invited to speak at The Summit, an annual BYU conference aimed at motivating and inspiring students. With free rein to select her own topic, she chose to do what professors usually do: talk about their research.

After wrapping up her remarks, Jones Christensen expected a few short follow-up conversations. Instead, she stood wide-eyed as a seemingly endless line of students waited to talk with her.

So many people said they needed to hear what I had shared, Jones Christensen recalls. Some were weeping; others were smiling. Many asked how they could learn more. It was a testament that when people feel seen, they want to share. It was a turning point for me.

Her keynote focused on an unexpected topic for a motivational speech: trauma. Not necessarily big-T trauma, such as surviving war as a refugee or losing parents at a young age, but also the quieter forms of trauma that come from experiences such as moving overseas as a child and not having friends or growing up in a home impacted by mental illness. Jones Christensens presentation explored how leaders can support those who have faced trauma in any form, without needing to act as a therapist or know personal details.

The students overwhelming reaction to Jones Christensens message on trauma and trauma-informed leadership underscores why business leaders should take note. According to a 2023 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly two-thirds of adults in the United States have experienced trauma through adverse childhood experiences,

which can affect job performance in misunderstood ways. In professional environments, the strain can manifest as silence, turnover, poor decision-making, or compulsive overworkingcosts that organizations are already paying for.

At its core, trauma-informed leadership is about helping employees thrive. The idea is simple: Give leaders a toolkit to support and manage employees whose performance is being hindered by a sudden intrusion of difficult past experiences or by stress responses that bring out old patterns tied to those experiences.

When capable people go quiet, get rigid, or stop contributing at prior levels, most leaders think its a motivation problem or a culture problem, says Jones Christensen, the Lorin Farr Associate Professor of Management. Its actually a capacity problem, and capacity can be restored.

Under pressure, people impacted by trauma can lose access to clear thinking, confidence, and innovationnot because they lack drive but because their nervous system gets overloaded. Jones Christensen explains that the prefrontal cortexwhere judgment, creativity, and individuality operategoes offline when it believes its under threat.

Leaders who understand this stop misreading their employees, she explains. Instead of adding more intensity and threat, they protect the capacities that people need to perform.

To help, Jones Christensen has developed a framework that translates the science and psychology around trauma-informed leadership in noncorporate settings into concrete leadership strategies for corporate settings. The approach, called the SAFER framework, centers on five practices:

and

. Built and tested across veteran, refugee, and emergency-care settings, these practices translate directly into boardrooms, startups, and high-growth organizations.

Many clinics and schools have changed outcomes massively by applying trauma-informed principles, says Jones Christensen. There is even a government manual that defines trauma-informed care. But those ideas have been slower to reach the business world.

A two-time breast cancer survivor, Jones Christensen experienced a disease that traumatized every part of her lifeher health, her marriage, her family, and her career. But it was her background in international development, working specifically with refugees, that sparked an interest in studying trauma.

Years ago, Jones Christensen was supporting refugee entrepreneurs at a farmers market in Salt Lake City when a nearby car backfired loudly. The refugee vendor she was talking with immediately dove under the table, leaving a pile of unguarded merchandise and money.

In that instant, there was nothing more important to her than taking cover, Jones Christensen recalls. It occurred to me how people are often left to their own devices to deal with PTSD while theyre trying to manage their lives and make a living.

Over the course of the next year, Jones Christensen published a few academic articles on trauma with Beth Embry, an assistant professor of management at the University of Kansas. She also collaborated with fellow BYU Marriott professor Paul Godfrey. The enthusiastic response to the research convinced Jones Christensen that she needed to do more.

In the years that followed, she went all in to better understand trauma, earning six different certifications in the area and pitching a book idea to Routledge/Taylor & Francis. The book, titled

, is set to be published in January 2027.

As her research developed, Jones Christensen consulted with scholars and experts, including former BYU Marriott mental health specialist Aliah Hall. The two met while Hall was leading workshops with faculty on what trauma looks like and how it affects students. Sometimes Hall got pushback on the topic because people viewed the term as referring only to severe, life-altering events.

But Hall believes there are two buckets: trauma that threatens how you live your life (big-T trauma) and trauma that makes you feel out of control (small-t trauma). Both are valid and have real impact. When those small-t trauma stressors stack to the point that someone feels out of control, the impact on the nervous system can mirror the symptoms of big-T trauma, Hall says.

There are so many things happening in our community and world that we carry, which cause us to function a little differently, continues Hall, who now works in the counseling center at BYUHawaii. We cant pack that all up and put it in our pocket when we go to work; it comes with us.

Jones Christensen says the compounding nature of those stressors matters. After years of pandemic, economic instability, and geopolitical upheaval, many people are operating under sustained stress and have a permanently elevated baseline. The nervous system has not recovered from the last disruption before the next one arrives. As a result, Jones Christensen says that trauma-informed leadership has become urgent. It offers tools that work when others stop working.

While older generations may not want to talk about trauma or may believe its something to be worked out solely with a therapist, Jones Christensen says that the generation now entering the workforce does want to talk about it.

Im not going to shy away from the word

; I am going to be an ambassador for the word, Jones Christensen adds. I used to think that only the things Ive seen in third-world countriesassault, starvation, displacementor what war veterans face qualify as trauma. But scholars have helped me learn that trauma is not what happens to you, it is what happens

of you.

Jones Christensens research shows that businesses implementing trauma-informed care can see powerful gains in cost savings, job satisfaction, well-being, trust, retention, and service quality, with the most statistically significant impacts on healthcare costs, stress reduction, burnout, and absenteeism.

The core concept of the SAFER framework is to provide solutions that dont require managers to adopt a new style of leadership, become therapists, or diagnose their employees. And employees dont need to disclose any personal information. In practice, the approach is more about what managers design, how they speak, and when they should intervene. Here is a look at the five principles at the heart of the framework paired with sample scripts that show how to put each principle into practice.

Safety:

When it comes to addressing safety in a trauma-informed fashion, its not only about the physical safety of doors, locks, and lighting. Jones Christensen and Embry believe it is about whether people can predict what will happen next. Leaders need to send consistent signals that the environment is safe. In practice, that can be as straightforward as publishing clear agendas before every meeting, summarizing decisions before they are made, or explaining what will happen after a difficult conversation.

When it comes to meetingsespecially those with high stakesthere are several easy-to-implement practices that significantly help employees. Beyond sharing the agenda in advance, managers can start and end on time, briefly review the agenda at the outset, and state time constraints early on. (We have 15 minutes to discuss the risks.) Another simple practice is to offer employees choices. (Sit where youre most comfortable. Cameras are optional. Step out at any point if you need to.)

Here are some additional scripts provided by Jones Christensen that can increase the sense of psychological safety in the workplace:

You do not need to be certain to raise a concern; your perspective matters.

Awareness:

Researchers are adamant that true awareness hinges on early detection. In other words, leaders who practice awareness watch for the signals that precede performance drops: the high performer who stops asking questions in group settings, the team member whose updates get shorter, or the meeting where everyone agrees immediately and no one pushes back. When these situations arise, leaders might try the following scripts:

One often-overlooked aspect of awareness is recognizing how seemingly harmless workplace traditions can affect employees. Off-site holiday parties held in the evening or on the weekend are one example. When attendance is at an unfamiliar location, the issues of physical safety and psychological safety come to the forefront, says Jones Christensen. When it is socially unacceptable to not attend, then choice is gone. One persons type of celebration meant to motivate, thank, or inspire could be another persons source of anxietyor an unexpected financial burden or expense.

Just being aware that something planned to celebrate can have the opposite impact is a meaningful first step. According to Jones Christensen, slight adjustments can make all the difference: Instead of the off-site weekend holiday party, try a voluntary event during workday hours on-site or at a familiar location. For those who cant be there or who arent comfortable attending, send them an Uber Eats gift card.

Another surprising insight from the research: Calling a workplace a family doesnt always create belonging. For employees who grew up with abuse, addiction, neglect, or other unhealthy dynamics, the word

can carry painful associations. In cases like this, Jones Christensen says, referring to the team as family can be problematic or even triggering.

Flexibility:

Flexibility failures occur when leaders themselves go rigid under pressure and resort to measures such as narrowing decision rights, adding approval layers, or shortening meetings to avoid debate. While leaders gain a sense of control from these behaviors, employees often experience them as threats. Teams under rigid leadership act compliant but stop flagging problems or sharing new ideas.

The kind of flexibility Jones Christensen describes has less to do with workplace perks than with how organizations handle pressure. Flexibility allows organizations to experience stress without driving more fear. Jones Christensen calls this codified flexibility, where flexibility is baked into leadership rather than improvised on the fly. For example, leaders practicing trauma-informed flexibility keep strategic priorities stable while deciding in advance who can make which decisions, when timelines can flex, and when remote work is an option.

Flexibility is not lack of standards; it is not drift, Embry says. It is disciplined adaptability under pressure.

Its also critical that flexibility has built-in limitations. When every decision is open to interpretation, employees can become overwhelmed by choice, leading to decision fatigue and burnout. Instead of spending cognitive energy on logistics (When do we meet?), managers can focus on purpose (Why are we meeting?). Here are two relevant scripts:

Empathy:

Picture a senior leader delivering necessary feedback to a high performer during a quarterly review. Within minutes, the employee becomes defensive, quiet, and distant. The leader may see a resilience problem and increase pressure, when in reality, the employees nervous system has registered a threat and narrowed cognitive access. Feedback meant to be developmental was processed as risk.

Empathy focuses on recognizing what is happening biologically and responding to the underlying situation instead of the surface behavior. A leader who can properly show empathy delivers the same standards with dramatically different outcomes, says Jones Christensen. You can put empathy into action with these scripts:

Regulation and Repair:

Leaders can approach hard conversations carefully and offer employees some choice about when and where those conversations happen. Beyond responding in the moment, leaders who practice regulation will check back to support employees and connect them with needed resources.

When follow-up is required after hard conversations, it should happen within 48 hours. Research shows that silence after a difficult conversation can cause an employee and a supervisor to become further entrenched on opposite sides. A 2022 Gallup study found that the most significant predictor of employee disengagement is a manager who ignores problems.

In contrast, a leader who repairs issues with a trauma-informed mentality owns their part of the conflict first and focuses on the impact to the employee:

For Jones Christensen, repair represents a value central to BYU Marriotts mission. Ultimately, this approach is personal because it provides ways to be Christlike in business while not lowering your standards. It holds people accountable with kindness,

she says.

Adds Hall: Part of our covenant responsibility is that when we see someone struggling, we dont look away.

When implemented consistently, the SAFER framework helps restore the sense of agency that trauma often takes away. Simple practices or scripts allow leaders to support employees while maintaining professional standards.

The way trauma manifests itself is not always predictable, Embry explains. When you are deep in your amygdalain that fight-or-flight survival modeyou cannot fully access your frontal cortex. That limits your ability to think critically, make decisions, respond promptly, and communicate effectively.

But simple actions can go a long way. Preparing agendas, allowing seating choice, and providing clear policies might seem small, but they have an enormous positive impact on someones central nervous system, notes Jones Christensen.

Trauma-informed practices for leadership translate into overall best practices for leading, Jones Christensen says. Trauma-informed leadership is not only about supporting individuals who are dealing with trauma or other mental health issues but supporting the entire team. It makes for a great working environment.

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Todd Hollingshead is the national news director for BYUs University Communications office. Hes been writing feature pieces for

since 2009.

Illustrations by Jon Krause.

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Notes

You may have noticed some changes to this issue of

. To commemorate its golden anniversary, the magazine has undergone a redesign. Youll still find alumni stories, faculty research, school news, uplifting messages, and relevant trends, and weve expanded departments and refreshed the look to be more reader friendly. In honor of our makeover

our 50th anniversary, heres a peek at some behind-the-scenes stats.

What was penned by then-Dean Merrill J. Bateman in the inaugural issue of

(previously named

) rings true today:

is intended to be more than a display of academic writing, more than an update of BYU events. We hope that it will help build a network of professionals who share our concern for strong management skills and leadership.

Like any 50-year-old, weve experimented with a few looks through the decadesand some questionable fonts.

is printed on a web press in groups of 32 pages that are folded and cut as soon as the ink hits the paper. Although the magazine staff is based in Provo, our printing facilityCummings Printingis more than 2,400 miles away in Hooksett, New Hampshire. CEO Sam Cummings shares, Each page is checked with a spectrophotometer to ensure registration is correct, that each of the four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) are perfectly aligned.

Nothing makes us happier than when you share an article with a friend, coworker, or family member, whether its a story from a recent issue or from deep in the archive. Case in point: One of the most-read online articles last year was from Fall 2007, How to Spot a Ponzi, by former Dean Ned C. Hill. Throughout the years, readership has remained strong; approximately 70 percent of alumni surveyed said they read some to all of

.

Our circulation climbs as thousands of new graduates are added to our distribution list every year. The magazine is mailed three times a year to all alumni in the United States and Canada and is also available on campus. International graduatesalong with any reader who opts incan receive an electronic version. (To subscribe to the digital magazine or to update your address, visit marriott.byu.edu/magazine/mailing.) You can find all articles online at marriottmag.byu.edu. Click on the Magazine Archive tab to revisit past issues.

Jon Woidka (below), who recently accepted a position as art director for BYU Brand & Creative, began working for

in 2004 (although we roped him into being the sleepy cover model in 2003). Woidkas intricate headlines, creative spark, and attention to detail left a distinctive mark on the magazine. We now look forward to many years of collaboration with our new art director, A.J. Rich, who brings a keen artistic eye to the publication

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BYU is winding down its year of sesquicentennial celebrations, making it a natural time to look toward the universitys next 150 years.

BYUs sesquicentennial has been monumental, says President C. Shane Reese. As a community, let us look beyond this years events to year 151less of a landmark number, perhaps, but we will still be here and building on incredible momentum. I promise you, the future is bright.

For BYU Marriott, planning for the future means increasing enrollment capacity, leveraging AI for both students and faculty, and updating curriculumas well as the Tanner Building. The developments will no doubt bring challenges, but the school has never shied away from efforts to provide top-notch education.

The good news: BYU Marriott programs have grown significantly. From 2019 to 2025, student admission rates for the schools undergraduate majors increased by 59 percent. But even as more students are admitted, demand continues to exceed the space available. Rhonda Sandberg, BYU Marriott assistant dean of advisement, curriculum, and undergraduate admissions, knows there are a lot of talented applicants who would be terrific students, yet last year 26 percent of undergraduate major applications werent accepted.

We literally do not have enough space or sufficient staffing, but we are desperately trying to figure out how to accept more people, Sandberg says. The overarching goal is to offer qualified-enrollment programs so every student who meets the criteria can be admitted to the major of his or her choice. Any new resources we receive are helping that effort.

In the meantime, Sandberg continues, the school is getting creative. One of the thinking-outside-the-box moves is reviving the business management major, which was a staple at BYU Marriott until business management emphases were established as their own majors. We have more flexibility in expanding business management because the program doesnt assign the students into cohortsthere are fewer moving parts, Sandberg explains.

During the winter 2026 semester, 15 students participated in a business management admissions pilot program, which is being evaluated for future expansion. The major appeals to students with different needs, such as students planning on attending graduate school or those who value a general business education rather than a discipline-specific skill set. Business management is also a wonderful route for people who want to have their own small business or work in a family business where they need to know a little bit about everything, Sandberg says. Those students thrive in the major.

Lydia Atkinson is one student who found business management to be a perfect fit. One of my favorite parts is how customizable the major is, says Atkinson, a senior from Austin, Texas. Its nice to balance my classes based on what I want for my career. A master aesthetician, Atkinson chose business management to build a strong foundation for potentially opening her own med spa someday. Even if I dont start a business, I have skills that make me a better leader, she adds. I was a little nervous at first because the major doesnt have cohorts, but at orientation I met a lot of people with similar career goals and realized,

.

James Gaskin compares the rise of artificial intelligence in academia to a tidal wave. Professors are doing their best to get their heads above water, but the wave keeps shifting and curling in on itself, constantly getting bigger and morphing.

Gaskin, a BYU Marriott information systems (IS) professor, says its hard to know what to teach, how to teach it, and how to evaluate students in this fast-moving environment. We need to rethink how were teaching, he says. My concern is we wont be able to keep up, or well get burned out trying to stay on top.

Jeff Wilks, BYU Marriott associate dean, says the school is only at the tip of the iceberg in understanding AIs potential. But that uncertainty is not slowing down efforts to incorporate AI at BYU Marriottand not just with students. This year, the school required all faculty and staff to take an AI course because, Wilks says, As you get into it, your mindset changes and you start to realize all the things you can do.

AI is part of every assignment in Gaskins Introduction to Information Systems course, and he sends students to AI to learn skills that he intentionally didnt teach. If students want to be competitive, they cant use AI like a chatbot, because everyone can do that. They need to be using the latest features and building applications that their professors didnt ask them to build, Gaskin says. Thats how students will learn all of AIs limitations and all of its strengths.

The IS introductory course has multiple sections with roughly 3,000 students each academic year, and Gaskin oversees the teaching assistants. He shares that until recently, it took me more time to manage the TAs than it did to teach the course.

That changed in 2022 when Gaskin built an AI teaching assistant that could answer any question from the 500-page textbook. Research showed that the virtual TA was effective and that students liked it because it was not judgmental, had 24/7 availability, and had infinite patience. Gaskin used to hire one human TA for every 40 students and now hires one for every 60 students.

Wilks points to two other tools that can have a big impact on students: AI Apprentice and CAiSEY. AI Apprentice is an intentionally dumbed-down chatbot that students can teach after learning a concept themselves. The chatbota brainchild of Professor David Wood from the School of Accountancythen takes an exam, and students earn the grade it receives. CAiSEY, created at Columbia Business School, is a voice-based platform that converses with students about cases theyre studying. Students who use CAiSEY come to class better prepared to discuss and defend their opinions, Wilks shares.

Opportunities like these are just scratching the surface. Im a techno-optimist, Gaskin says, but learning and teaching in the age of AI is going to be a wild ride. Its already been a wild ride the past few years.

A Christlike leadership course developed in 2019 by Kim B. Clark,

who recently retired as the NAC Professor of Business, became a requirement this year in three undergraduate programs: strategy, human resources, and business management. The remaining undergraduate programs are planning to add it to their curriculum during the 202728 academic year.

The course, MSB 300: Leadership and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, focuses on helping students become disciple-leaders. Dean Brigitte Madrian says that BYU Marriott students understand gospel principles but need help learning how to apply those principles in the workplace. Becoming a disciple-leader is a developmental experience, explains Madrian, who coauthored the course textbook with Clark. The hope is that students will engage in ways that leave them fundamentally different after completing the course.

One student wrote in a course reflection: I used to think of myself in terms of what I was doingschool, work, church calling, goalsbut now Ive started to view myself as a disciple who happens to do those things. That small shift has made a big difference. Its changed how I think about my choices. Ive started asking myself if what Im doing brings me closer

to Christ.

Shifts like these are central to the goals of MSB 300. We want our students to see themselves as leaders, because thats part of their identities as disciples of Jesus Christ, Madrian says. To be like Him is to lead as He leads.

Management Professor John Binghamwho teaches MBA 535: Leadership and the Gospel, the graduate equivalent of MSB 300says it was deeply rewarding to watch students make the content personal to their lives throughout the course. The hope is that every student leaves BYU Marriott with a world-class business education and, most importantly, with the ability to serve as disciple-leaders who represent BYU, the Church, and the Savior in a purposeful way.

While the Christlike leadership course focuses on improving the moral compass of BYU Marriott students, the school is also taking an opportunity to improve the Tanner Buildings physical appearance as the original structure approaches its 50th anniversary.

Construction began last April and is scheduled to run through 2031. The building will undergo improvements in its classrooms, offices, public spaces, and communication displays. The infrastructure will also be updatedatrium skylights, HVAC systems, lighting, technology, and bathroom accessibilityalong with seismic upgrades and a new fire suppression system.

Summer Elrod, BYU Marriott operations administrator, says the project is more than just a remodel: We hope that everyone who walks through the Tanner Buildings doors finds a welcoming space that meets the colleges dynamic needs while fostering learning, belonging, and growth.

These improvements will help the Tanner Building remain a pillar of BYUs campusperhaps even for another 150 years.

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