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Alumni Spotlight MBA MPA 2000–2004
Cody Strong, a 2002 MPA graduate, has spent the last year working as a public servant—not as a city or state administrator—but as a second lieutenant with the U.S. Army in Iraq.
Although Amy Olsen Clark has worked for numerous organizations—Microsoft, UVSC, United Way, Johnson & Johnson to name a few—she says her best job experience came when she worked as a program coordinator for CES youth and family programs while attending BYU.
Bill Aho’s quest to make watching movies less offensive has not only caught national media attention but also landed him in the political and legal spotlight.
In the last decade, alum Steven Schone has led a business that started as a lone specialty T-shirt kiosk in Salt Lake’s Fashion Place Mall into an operation of fifty stores throughout North America.
When G. Tracy Williams goes on business trips, he sometimes ends up halfway around the world.
When Corine Larsen Bradshaw participated in MPA class discussions on governmental work, she wasn’t just talking about information she knew second-hand—she was talking about her previous job.
When John McKinney graduated with his MBA last August, he wasn’t the only member of his family walking across the stage. He was joined by his wife, April, who earned her BS in community health, and their son, Collin, who earned his MA in Spanish literature. Then, one week after their graduation, John and April began serving a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, working for the Perpetual Education Fund (PEF). President Gordon B. Hinckley announced the PEF in 2001. In a January 2004 Ensign article, Elder John K. Carmack says the PEF was designed to “provide loans to help worthy returned missionaries and other young Latter-day Saint adults gain the training and education necessary for adequate employment in their own countries.”
Soon after Arturo Leon graduated with his MOB from the Marriott School, he found himself on the hot seat, being grilled by the president of the Mexican senate.
MBA grad Candice Wong (Lau, Siu Kuen) is second-in-command at a large Hong Kong jewelry company, and the road to this position was paved with self-discipline, hard work, ana strong sense of leadership.
For some entrepreneurs, inspiration hits in an airport terminal, conference room, or classroom. For Mike Robson, the conversation that put him on the path to his business happened at Burger King.
Lorin Killian and his wife, Lindsay, decided on ten days’ notice—just a week before his graduation from the Marriott School—to move to New York City. Killian felt uneasy about declining a job offer in Salt Lake City to move to New York without any job leads. “I was told countless times during my Marriott School MPA days that networking was crucial in all aspects of business,” Killian said. Out of desperation, he sent emails to his network of friends and acquaintances in the Manhattan area.
Students in the MBA Marketing Association organized a networking trip to Portland, Oregon, and Seattle last January. They met with companies in the area and with the Puget Sound chapter of the Management Society.
Krescent Hancock’s daily commute to Foggy Bottom via the metro’s blue line hasn’t gotten old yet. In fact, “each day is a new adventure,” she says.
Peter Christensen launched his writing career as an undergrad working for The Daily Universe. He was promoted from sports reporter to editor and then to editor-in-chief filling numerous other positions while on staff. "If I had my druthers, I might have ended up being a sports writer," Christensen said.
Several years ago, Sarah Sandberg watched a television program about one-hundred-year-old people. “I got two things out of it—take good care of your teeth, and take the risks,” she said. “I didn’t want to turn one hundred and wish I had taken more risks.”
The alignment of paddle strokes, says David Hanna, is a key component of a successful rafting team. “On the river, the consequence of misaligned members is known immediately—the boat moves to the left or to the right rather than in a straight line,” he said. In the business world, the consequences of misaligned members are not so obvious, but just as harmful in terms of goal achievement, Hanna said.
Leaping from third to first, this analyst’s bullishness throughout last year was distinctly rewarded. Ted A. Izatt was recognized by Institutional Investor magazine as the No. 1 All-American fixed income analyst for energy. Izatt, senior vice president of Lehman Brothers, Inc., is responsible for credit research coverage of oil and gas on a global basis. He joined the company’s fixed income research department in July 1997.
Intel business analyst Jason Packham said there might be a correlation between his winnings on ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and his BYU education. One question asked on the show was, "In which of these languages is the first-person singular subject pronoun always capitalized?" Packham gave the correct answer: English.
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.
Manhattan Investment Banker Credits BYU Scholarships For Career Success For someone who always wanted to be a doctor, a position as vice president of JP Morgan Chase & Co., wasn’t exactly what investment banker Katherine Lum had in mind. She lives and works in Manhattan and is responsible for assisting clients in raising debt securities in the private placement market. Depending on the flow of deals, Lum has been known to work up to twenty-hour days. What keeps her motivated? “I truly enjoy my job,” she said.
Shannon Francis edged into a seat in the back of her Marriott School Executive MBA classroom, trying not to draw attention to herself since she was among the few not wearing a suit. "Then about twenty minutes late, Steven waltzed in the door in rumpled, wrinkled casual attire, and I said to myself, ‘We could get along!'" Besides that, Shannon was sure that it meant he was single.