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Many people would be content with running the semifinals of the 100x4 meter relay in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. Not Kenneth Andam; he plans to compete again in the 2004 games and bring home a medal. However, his wins aren't only on the track. He is lapping competitors on the business fast track as well. Andam earned a double BS in information systems and economics from BYU in 2000 and is now a graduate student at BYU studying mass communications. His education gives him the technical and analytical skills he needs to compete in the global economy.
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.
When Rob Smoot earned his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he wanted to shout it from the mountaintops. Smoot celebrated the culmination of his education by leading forty fellow students to Africa's highest point the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro 19,341 feet above the vast African plains.
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.
After Patrick Tedjamulia graduated from the Marriott School, he landed a great job at Novell, thanks to an alum who helped get his foot in the door. Unfortunately, not all job hunters are lucky enough to have professional mentors, Tedjamulia says.
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.
When Matthew Bowman came to Sire Technologies in late 2005, the company’s sales were riding a roller coaster.
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.
On the cutting edge of research and education, Jeff Jenkins is leading the pack. A 2009 master of information systems graduate, Jenkins is now finishing up a doctoral program at the University of Arizona and is set to graduate this spring.
Wally works at Wal-Mart. It may sound like a tongue twister, but Wally Potts’s story is all business. In a little more than two years, Potts has brought in millions of dollars of revenue for the corporation.
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.
When Josh Steimle won the BYU business plan competition (now known as the Miller New Venture Challenge) in 2001, he was awarded the $5,000 he needed to make payroll for the week and the confidence to keep his new company, MWI, going for the next twelve years.
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.”
Alum Mirella Petersen is bold, organized, and driven—the perfect combination for getting autism insurance reform passed in Utah.
Service must be the primary focus of those who seek a generous heart and blessed life, writes Sonia Clayton.
The Utah Governor’s Mansion was blanketed in soft, blue light. The occasion was World Autism Awareness Day 2014, and buildings across the country were swapping bulbs to highlight a disorder that affects one in sixty-eight American children.
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.