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Rebecca McCarron Greenhalgh is no stranger to smart wordsmithing, so it was unusual when she was suddenly speechless during an important Zoom meeting.
It was a business proposition that would change the life of Stewart R. Walkenhorst. A colleague was closing up shop and asked if Walkenhorst would be interested in taking over some outstanding retail orders.
Tracey Evelyn Haslam, a 2001 BYU Marriott management grad, was shocked when she took her four children to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
Almost everything is a learning curve when you’re starting a business, and Sandy Whitaker, a 2003 business management alum, acknowledges that there can be plenty of bumps and detours along the way. But as she and her husband, Tim, a physical therapist, worked to realize their long-term goal of opening a physical therapy practice, Whitaker found that navigating the curve was easier because of knowledge and skills she had gathered along the way—from her formal education, her past jobs, and even her hobbies.
When Stephen H. Russell reflects on his life, he is struck by the way seemingly small decisions and ordinary situations have blossomed into extraordinary opportunities. “None of this was part of a strategic plan,” he says, “and I feel grateful when I see all the times Heavenly Father has blessed me.”
Born and raised in Honolulu, Thomas Y.K. Fong has long loved learning about the earth’s natural processes. He originally planned to earn a bachelor’s degree in geology at BYU and then pursue graduate studies in oceanography. But during one midwinter geology field trip to St. George, Utah, a sandstorm blew through the group’s campsite, prompting Fong to reconsider whether his studies had brought him too close to nature for comfort. “Halfway through that cold, sand-blown night, I’m thinking, ‘Is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life?’” Fong recalls.
In 1968 more than 150 students graduated from BYU Marriott with degrees in business management. Kristi Taylor Lawrence was one of the few women in that graduating class.
Just before heading to the University of Iowa to join the university’s swim team, John Fellows discovered a copy of the Book of Mormon on a bookshelf in his parents’ home in Boise, Idaho. He packed it in his bags, and before long he called the missionaries wanting to know more. The combination of his baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a swimming-prohibitive injury led him to transfer to BYU, where he joined the Army ROTC and discovered what would become his lifelong career.
Almost every May, between four hundred and seven hundred people, attend a Norwegian Constitution Day celebration at the International Peace Gardens in Salt Lake City and enjoy traditional Norwegian lefse flatbread and Solo orange soda. For more than a decade, the chair of the event’s committee has been 1995 business management grad Steve Affleck, who doesn’t have even a bit of Norwegian ancestry.
Hearing a mix of languages was commonplace for Everet Bluth, who grew up speaking both Spanish and English on his family’s farm in a Latter-day Saint settlement in northern Mexico. Life at home, Bluth says, “evolved around family, church, work on the farm, school, and sports.” He says he had a typical childhood—except that he started driving farm equipment when he was eight.
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.
From an early age, it was clear that Brian J. Baldus was destined for the world of business. In fact, he started his first company as a nine-year-old. Now as a professor and an academic researcher, Baldus strives to make a positive impact on the business community on campus and around the area.
Jonathan DeGraff is quick to point out that his time in the Tanner Building not only gave him a great education but also left him with a strong desire to serve.
Making use of her well-honed business chops, this 1976 BYU Marriott grad has spent retirement focused on improving her community—one creative solution at a time.
Jennifer Rockwood stepped onto BYU’s South Field and gazed numbly across the green turf. “What have I gotten myself into?” she recalls thinking. “Can I really do this?”
Life after graduation has taken them 1,700 miles apart. But drawing on their business savvy, these sisters have found a way to stay close by running The DIY Lighthouse.
Working as an attorney at one of the oldest firms in New York City, Chandler Tanner finally understood what the classic rock band Loverboy meant when they sang “Working for the Weekend.”
The roar of more than thirty thousand screaming fans had just been swallowed by an avalanche of noise from an F-22 Raptor and an F-15 fighter jet streaking overhead.
When Terisa Poulsen Gabrielsen finished her business management degree, the year was 1982 and the economy was bleak. Though she was determined to enter the business world, her best offer was a job teaching accounting at Salt Lake Community College. There, Gabrielsen discovered an unexpected love for teaching that kept her at the school for the next twenty-five years. Despite that love, she realized she had a job rather than a career. That realization became a turning point that would take her to the University of Utah, then to the streets of Philadelphia, and back to a BYU classroom.
In 1980 finance alum Ryan Tibbitts was one year away from graduating, but it wasn’t the textbooks he was hitting hard. Tibbitts was gearing up, along with the rest of the BYU football team, to take on Southern Methodist University—a showdown now immortalized in Tibbitts’s new book, Hail Mary: The Inside Story of BYU’s 1980 Miracle Bowl Comeback.
“Deciding to be a full-time mom over working full-time is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” says Marie Nielson Canaday. In fact, it’s a decision she still struggles with. While tending to two active boys keeps her very busy, Canaday is nurturing both her sons and her thriving love of all things business.
Jolene Day Weston’s two children can practically ski circles around her, even though they’re only three and a half. Her career path and journey to motherhood have taken a similar circuitous course.