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Alumni MBA 2023 2019 2010–2014
Awarded a BYU Homecoming 2023 Alumni Achievement Award, MBA alum Christopher Clason explained how inspired leaders create value in their professional and personal lives.
EMBA program alumnus Shawn Pace finds and meets people’s real-world needs, whether he’s in a Ukrainian refugee camp or an executive board room.
Jeffrey Burningham, adjunct faculty and partner to the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, believes the creative process is pivotal to a fulfilling life.
“Go, Cougs!” is still Adam Vandermyde’s enthusiastic cheer more than a decade after graduating from BYU Marriott’s MBA program in 2008. Through the years, Vandermyde has continued to support his alma mater by cheering for BYU sports and by hiring more than 150 BYU graduates to work at his companies.
Heather Hammond Cruz discovered her interest in the social innovation field after serving humanitarian trips in Zambia, Greece, and India.
At the age of thirty-six, Marc de Schweinitz strapped on his helmet and barreled down the half-pipe on his skateboard for the first time in fifteen years. This one-of-a-kind BYU Marriott alum chases his dreams, whether on a skateboard or in the office.
Hanging on a wall in Karen Ranson Peterson’s home is a quote commonly attributed to William Shakespeare: “Expectation is the root of all heartache.” Peterson has largely avoided such heartache because she’s frequently adjusted her life expectations as a result of several crucial experiences, which have led her to where she is today.
Employers and employees often struggle to find the applicant or company that they feel fits with their priorities and goals. BYU Marriott MBA alumnus Ethan Lindstrom found what works for him and his family in an industry he hadn't even considered.
Stephanie Crook was close to her breaking point. Pregnant with her fourth child and traveling frequently for work, she felt that things were slipping.
Our end goal is to create a single landing page for all of the nation's free legal services so we can provide justice for all.
Living without a washing machine and other conveniences was hardly what Kim Kimball Fale had in mind after graduating from BYU. She had earned a bachelor’s in business education in 1977 and a master’s in business education with an emphasis in organizational behavior in 1979. But when her husband, Tevita, suggested they move to his native Tonga for a few years, Fale agreed.
While many students are tempted to toss away class notes at the end of a school year, BYU MBA alum Jason Barron kept his and is actually making a profit from them.
Paris Fashion Week isn’t really Michael Hansen’s scene. He’s a sports-arena guy, feeling more in his element at a Final Four basketball game or a French Open tennis match.
Growing up with a father in foreign services, Reneta Bezerra ventured far beyond her home country of Brazil. Now that she has a family of her own, she’s still on the move.
Call it a cruel but fortunate twist of fate: Dan Handy’s companies tend to undergo extreme growth when it comes time for him to hit the books. As an undergrad and a grad student at the Marriott School, the current CEO of Bluehost.com guided two internet start-ups to success, sometimes smashing against current trends with a Ping-Pong paddle.
As soon as Thaylene Lowe Rogers made her decision to return to school for an Executive MBA, she hit the GMAT prep books. During a trip to Newport Beach, California, vacation time turned into study time as she and her son began plowing through the math section. After a year of brushing up, she was in. By 2015 she’ll be sporting a new Marriott School degree on her office wall.
Randy Judd’s story begins in the Ozarks of Arkansas, where he grew up with no indoor plumbing and went to school in a two-room schoolhouse. His family’s financial situation created what he feels was a truly fortunate opportunity to work full-time during college—a path that led him to the restaurant business.
Working at the Oracle Corporation, alum Liz Wiseman found herself constantly surrounded by intelligent people. But she noticed an ebb and flow—not of intelligence but of how leaders capitalized on or closed off that intelligence. One executive she coached was brilliant but shut down others, leaving their ideas untapped. Wiseman searched for something to share with this leader about the dynamic he was caught in but found nothing. “Someone needed to research how what leaders did either diminished or multiplied the intelligence of the people around them,” Wiseman says. “This seemed like a worthy pursuit, so I just did it.”
In the winter of 1989, the snow and pine trees of Sundance Resort set the backdrop for Doug and Judith Maughan’s second date. Doug, an MBA student at the time, had asked Judith to accompany him to a Valentine’s dinner and dance sponsored by the Marriott School. “He was handsome, smart, and probably the most polite man I had ever met,” says Judith of her date. Doug was also persistent and outdoorsy—during the summers, he caught salmon in Alaska as a commercial fisherman to help pay for school. After Doug worked his charms that evening in the mountains, dates with Judith became increasingly frequent. Sharing space in the Tanner Building, where she was also a Marriott School student, helped fuel their courtship.
Pretty Govindji was always an avid viewer of the Food Network, but when her sons came into the picture, her investment in tasty meals took on new meaning. Dinnertime goals soon centered on organic cooking, and before too long, Govindji realized what she served food on might matter just as much as good fruits and veggies.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
Jamie Shaw first caught the travel bug as an MBA student at the Marriott School. She had never left the country before but decided to participate in a new business study abroad program to several Asian countries. From the first stop, she was smitten.
With wet eyelashes, Reachel walked out of her bedroom and found a stranger sitting in her apartment. The guy casually resting his elbow on the couch was Andrew, a friend of her roommates. 
BYU's 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year, Brad Moss, won big at a competition hosted at the New York Stock Exchange.