As a child, Gene Hayes watched his mother reenter the workforce after his father left their family. “All of a sudden, she had the huge responsibility of providing for my brother and me,” Hayes recalls.
His mom, an administrative assistant at the power company in Oaxaca, Mexico, also sold homemade pies and bread to supplement her income. “She didn’t have a formal education,” Hayes says. “I vividly remember her emphasizing, ‘Get a good education; it’s an investment in your future.’”
When Hayes was finishing his undergraduate degree in economics at BYU, he decided to apply to the BYU Marriott MBA program just days before the application deadline. Hayes stopped by the Tanner Building, hoping to meet Bill Sawaya, who was MBA program assistant director at the time.
But Sawaya was booked solid. “I told the office manager, ‘If someone doesn’t show up, I’ll be here,’” Hayes recalls. “I love talking with people, so I got to know everyone in the office during the next few hours.”
Hayes eventually caught Sawaya’s attention and was invited in for a meeting. “You’ve been waiting a long time,” Sawaya said.
“Yes,” Hayes responded, “because I want to tell you my story.”
After an “amazing conversation,” Sawaya introduced Hayes to other members of the MBA admissions committee and connected him with an Intel recruiter who later offered Hayes an internship. “Bill Sawaya didn’t need to meet with me that day. He didn’t need to be as kind as he was. He didn’t need to introduce me to the recruiter, but that generous act changed the trajectory of my life in every single way,” says Hayes, who completed his MBA in 1996.
The encounter with Sawaya is one of many experiences that illustrate Hayes’s initiative. “My drive—and some may call it grit or stubbornness—has opened a lot of doors for me,” says Hayes, who’s also a competitive squash player.
When Hayes was hired as founding director for BYU–Idaho’s Pathway International in 2010, he was charged with launching the program internationally. Ten years later, the program had a new name (BYU–Pathway Worldwide), Hayes had a new position (director of international operations), and the program had broken new ground (operating in 152 countries). “Moving to freezing Rexburg, Idaho, with my family was one of our best decisions,” recalls Hayes, a father of five. “I saw thousands of lives changed.”
Now in his role as senior vice president of regional operations at Western Governors University (WGU), Hayes leads a team that supports student acquisition, enables economic mobility for alumni, and elevates brand awareness. “Even though WGU doesn’t have the gospel as a lens for what we do, we are extremely committed to human beings and their progression,” says Hayes, who now lives in North Salt Lake, Utah, with his wife, Beverly.
Education, Hayes continues, unlocks opportunities—just as his mother promised. “The more you open your mind and contemplate history and the more you travel and see the kindness of people around the world,” he says, “the more you will love others and align with what the gospel is all about.”
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Written by Emily Edmonds
