News Releases 

Many college students leave behind the comforts of home when they head off to school. When Alexis Rankin arrived at BYU as a transfer student, she chose to give up the comforts of the career she grew up thinking she would pursue. Despite this big change, Rankin was able to attend student association meetings at the BYU Marriott School of Business, which helped her find a new career path as a human resource management student.

Whether he’s teaching students in a classroom or coaching his players from the sidelines of a volleyball court, BYU Marriott School of Business accounting alum RJ Mattei loves learning and teaching in many forms.

The more Breann Hunt learns about social impact causes, the more she envisions businesses changing the way they operate forever. The BYU Marriott School of Business strategy senior hopes to change the industry as a social impact consultant who helps businesses take on bigger roles in making a difference in their communities. Hunt is studying strategic management at BYU Marriott because she believes the program will give her the tools to help companies make those changes.

Inspired by his father, Carlos Valles moved from Mexico to the United States to study at the BYU Marriott School of Business and launch his career. Now working as a brand manager for The Hershey Company, the marketing alum is fueled by his passion for business and influential experiences at BYU Marriott. 

In 1984, a young Colby Wright watched the BYU football team win the national championship after beating the University of Michigan in the Holiday Bowl. Watching the team’s improbable run to the top proved to be an inspiring catalyst in Wright’s life as he later attended BYU. Years later, Wright is now back at BYU as a professor of finance at the BYU Marriott School of Business, though not because of his love for the football team, but because of the exceptional students he works with on a regular basis. He is also grateful for the character principles BYU Marriott is built on, which he strives to live by running a nonprofit for higher education in the Philippines.

As an undergraduate student at BYU, Christine Parks initially joined the accounting program simply because she enjoyed the subject of accounting. Now as a MAcc student at the School of Accountancy (SOA) at BYU Marriott School of Business, Parks loves the accounting program for additional reasons, namely, the unique opportunities that the program gives her to interact with other people.

As an adjunct professor at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Beth Wilkins knows her students want to make a difference in the world. Wilkins teaches a leadership class in the human resource management program that helps students learn how to make that difference by first understanding themselves better. To this end, Wilkins strives to bring her knowledge and experience as an industry professional, including running her own consulting firm, to the classroom.

While growing up on a farm in Leeton, Missouri, Amy Caldwell woke up each morning and bounded off to play with the horses, milk the cows, and retrieve eggs from the chickens. Her upbringing taught her the value of hard work. Now as a mentor for the Rollins Center of Entrepreneurship and Technology at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Caldwell focuses on establishing connections with student entrepreneurs and teaching them the value hard work.

When she was a freshman at BYU, Ashley Weiler's first meeting with the Women of the School of Accountancy (WSOA) club left her in awe. Through the WSOA, Weiler finally found the missing piece of her BYU education: a place where she belonged. Now as the president of the WSOA, Weiler hopes to show incoming female students that they can also feel at home in the accounting program.

After drinking a soda on his way home from campus, BYU Marriott School of Business alum Ryan Smith was surprised to find his student apartment did not have any way to recycle his empty can. After reading a BYU survey that showed the majority of students also wanted to recycle, the 2016 strategy alum started thinking of the idea for Recyclops, a gig economy recycling company. Running his own business while taking classes allowed Smith to learn much more from the strategy program. Although Recyclops almost failed, applying the principles he learned in the classroom to his work helped Smith produce a multimillion-dollar company.

A group of BYU Army ROTC students finished tenth out of forty-four teams in the April 2021 Sandhurst Challenge at West Point, New York. Competing against leading ROTC programs from around the country, BYU Army ROTC cadets pushed past their limits and used their military skills to complete an extreme competition, testing both their physical and mental capacities.

BYU Marriott School of Business alum Wes Whitman owns his own real estate private equity firm and has an MBA from Harvard, achievements the 2003 finance graduate credits to the foundational experiences he had at BYU Marriott. His education as an undergraduate prepared him for accomplishments throughout his life and allows him to now give back to the school that helped set his career in motion. After succeeding in real estate, he now works to helps students strengthen their knowledge of real estate career paths and create connections with the BYU Marriott alumni network.

When global supply chain adjunct professor and Dublin native John Connolly first came to visit Utah as a young adult, he had no idea that he would be teaching classes at BYU Marriott only eight years later. Now, Connolly is thankful for his past education and experiences and feels privileged to be part of the aim to educate and influence students at BYU.

Amid the stress of studying for winter semester finals, four teams of BYU Marriott School of Business information systems (IS) students also prepared to compete in national competitions. The students' hard work paid off—all four teams took home top-three finishes across two competitions at the annual Student Chapter Leadership Conference hosted by the Association for Information Systems (AIS). The final events for the competitions were held virtually 9–10 April 2021.

Consistently performing above expectations is often a recipe for success. For Chandler Bush, rising above what is expected seems to be instinctive. This natural ability has resulted in accomplishments throughout his career, including earning his current job as a design strategist at Adobe. The BYU Marriott School of Business 2016 human resource management (HRM) graduate credits BYU Marriott for helping him achieve success in his young career.

Jeffery Thompson has been named the first-ever director of the Sorensen Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership at Brigham Young University.

Teamwork is an important part of any business, whether on a small hay farm or in a large hospital. For Preston Willey, a BYU Marriott School of Business finance senior from Midway, Utah, the benefits of teamwork are personal because medical teams helped him beat cancer. Now he is striving to give back by connecting the principles learned from a childhood job to the classroom and the medical field.

Global supply chain management (GSCM) alumna McKenzi Gebhard knows she wouldn’t be where she is now if not for the BYU Marriott School of Business. From influential faculty, valuable peer relationships, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, the “BYU Marriott family” and its values have helped Gebhard become the professional she is today.

When he worked at an Italian restaurant while still in high school, Bryan Welton loved discovering ways to improve the flow of the company in every aspect, from the salad bar to the pizza-cooking process. Years later as a successful business owner and mentor for the Rollins Center of Entrepreneurship and Technology at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Welton continues to enjoy the process of improving—primarily through helping students improve their companies.

Every year, BYU students have the opportunity to enhance their international relations and business knowledge and skills by earning the global business certificate offered through the Whitmore Global Business Center (GBC) at the BYU Marriott School of Business. To earn the certificate, students are required to participate in an international travel experience. However, with COVID-19 canceling international travel throughout the world, Matt Sabey, a recent 2021 BYU MBA graduate from Littleton, Colorado, had to find another way to experience business internationally and earn his certificate.