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Alumni Experience Design Finance
For Wyman Roberts, vacationing at Universal Studios proved to be so much fun that he decided to land a career in the industry. Roberts has been appointed executive vice president of marketing—chief marketing officer—for Universal Studios Recreation Group.
The Webster brothers know that money doesn’t grow on trees; however, in the last few years they’ve successfully expanded their family’s 200-acre orchard into a profitable online business.
It was just one of those days.
Many people would feel just as uncomfortable sitting in a mechanic’s waiting room as they would waiting for a dentist’s chair.
Most children think their parents are nothing short of superheroes. Darin Christensen’s four children probably have a few more bragging rights since their dad was named one of the 2006 Oregon Super Lawyers.
The partners and advisors of Salt Lake City–based Aptus Advisors have more in common than just their employer. They all have degrees from the same school.
While California gets much of the attention for up-and-coming technology news, Utah’s own “Silicon Slopes” feature many companies making headlines in the tech world.
While many business leaders strive to expand their organization’s reach globally, one Marriott School grad oversees projects that have a more vertical approach—out of this atmosphere, actually.
Gregory Cornell has had a front row seat to history. After graduating from BYU in finance in 1985, he joined the U.S. Army and served his first four years in Germany at the end of the Cold War.
In an ever-expanding digital universe, Brad Rencher and his team at Adobe Systems Inc. navigate the Cloud like rocket men.
Jeff Holdaway, a 1982 finance graduate, knew there was a way for him to combine his passion for business and law. After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1985 and working at a national law firm, an opportunity arose that he couldn’t turn down. Twenty-four years later Holdaway is still glad he jumped at the chance to work at Marriott International.
During the housing collapse, the sweltering summer heat of Phoenix was no place for a young salesman pushing pest control. But for Adam Keys it was just the kind of pressure needed to get the creative juices flowing. “Nobody had money and nobody liked salesmen,” Keys remembers. It was then that Keys matched the perfect product with its target audience. “I sold No Soliciting signs door-to-door,” Keys says. “Eighty percent of people who would laugh when they opened the door would buy it.” But this wasn’t just funny business: the 2011 finance graduate paid his college bills, learned graphic design, and gained experience running his own company.
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.”
Noemi Morales, a native of Roswell, Georgia, started out as a photography major at BYU-Idaho. Although it took her a few years in Rexburg, an LDS mission to St. George, Utah; and lots of decisions, Morales has finally found her calling in the Marriott School’s recreation management program. She’s even landed an internship with a popular new company called Slide the City that puts on giant waterslide events across the country.
It was 6:30 p.m., and Dora Ho-Ellis was still in her office. “Normally, I’m not that hardworking,” she quips. But when the phone rang with a pivotal opportunity for the entrepreneurship education program she spearheaded at Singapore Polytechnic, she was grateful she was there to answer.
Doug Jackson is bringing sight to tens of thousands around the globe—thanks to a new kind of vision for humanitarian work.
Many people don’t do well with the unknowns in life. A dark path unexplored and unfamiliar has thwarted more than a few worthy ambitions. Matt Hawkins, on the other hand, relishes the chance to mold that darkness.
Warren Price is about to step in waist-high water in the middle of the Provo River when a bull moose saunters up the pedestrian bridge thirty yards to the south.
The residential staff could hear the soft crying of Mrs. C. from down the hall. A victim of dementia, the woman would sit alone by her door at Wisteria Place in Abilene, Texas, weeping and longing for her home and her daughter. She remained distant behind her tears—until Leticia Stucki, the resident recreational therapist and a 2014 BYU grad, discovered an astounding way to reach her: Czechoslovakian polka. The music reminded Mrs. C. of when she was a child and watched her parents dance in the kitchen.
Matt Miller is a builder. A 2008 graduate from the BYU Marriott School with a degree in finance, Miller built his first computer at age eleven and his first business while an undergraduate student at BYU. He now helps build the visions of entrepreneurs into multi-million-dollar companies as a partner at Sequoia Capital, a world-class tech venture capital firm located in Menlo Park, California.
Sumo wrestling, Buddhist temples, sushi and cherry blossoms seem as commonplace as Shavasana for finance guru Ryan Daniels, a Marriott School finance alum. Daniels has spent half of his life growing up and working outside the United States, including his current position at tech giant Apple in China.
Elizabeth Smith loves her job as an executive assistant for Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment (LHMSE).
Their internship at Steps Recovery sent them cycling, climbing, and crafting but for this pair of TR alumni, summer activities were far more than just play.
What a BYU Marriott finance alum is doing to maximize his personal success while still paying it forward.