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Alumni Spotlight Entrepreneurship Marketing
Quick transitions between life events have always been part of Merle Allen’s unofficial strategy for most of his life. At BYU’s 1954 graduation dance, the marketing grad, senior class president, and former varsity football player proposed to his sweetheart, Carol Beckstrand. After the MC announced the happy news, Allen says they then rushed to Beckstrand’s parents’ home to “tell her folks so we’d get to them before somebody else did.”
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.
BYU Marriott alumni and former marketing professor Scott Smith was honored during Homecoming Week at Brigham Young University with the prestigious Alumni Achievement Award presented from the BYU Marriott School of Business.
Marketing alum Mitchell Kimball spent his free time messaging, emailing, calling, and visiting anyone involved in careers that interested him, efforts which would prepare him to be a top candidate for his dream job.
Dissembled computer mice, parts of a camera, and batteries scattered everywhere are not typical under-the-bed clutter, but for Bryan Brittain, his childhood floor was littered with the evidence of an inventive mind.
Every day at 7:30 a.m., an alarm sounds on the phone of BYU Marriott School of Business alum Tyler Morgan which reads, "Go save babies."
Who said your age should keep you from pursuing your dreams? BYU Marriott alum Caleb Wagner didn't let his young age stop him from starting a business.
Entrepreneurship alum Darrell Swain already has three successful tech startups under his belt, and his entrepreneurial drive shows no sign of slowing down.
Have you ever considered living in a truck to save money on rent? One BYU Marriott alum made this idea a reality.
Partnering with his mother, BYU Marriott alum Sterling Jones co-founded JoJo's Chocolate, a healthy treat company aiming to replace sugar cravings.
Phil Andersen, BYU Marriott marketing alum and partner team manager at Pinterest, knows a thing or two about proactively achieving professional success.
When Hani Almadhoun, a Muslim from Palestine, attended BYU, he found many Mormon friends. One of his favorite stories of his time on campus is how his Mormon friends often introduced him to others.
Ashley Emig helps ideas and concepts come alive in a retail store near you.
Now that Luke Mocke is linked up with LinkedIn, he is finding ways to mentor students and help them land their dream jobs too.
Two years after graduating with a degree in marketing from the Marriott School in 1990, Jenner Marcucci decided he was going to make his first $100,000 and buy a house—and then he did it.
Swim with sperm whales in Dominica—check. Visit an underground city in Turkey—check. Canyoneer in Indonesia—check. See the annual lantern festival in Thailand; swim with penguins in the Galapagos; and kayak with dolphins in Australia—check, check, check!
To remedy their boredom one summer afternoon in 2009, Jeffrey Handy and his high school buddies decided to get a trailer, fill it with cardboard boxes, and build a giant fort in his friend’s backyard. To their surprise, the fort built from two hundred boxes attracted more than three hundred spectators and earned them the record for world’s largest cardboard fort.
Skyler Carr grew up dreaming of traveling through space and hunting aliens. His favorite day in grade school included a trip to the Space Center in Pleasant Grove, where he could practice being a spaceman. He never forgot those days, and in 2012 he was devastated to hear the Space Center would be shut down.
Cotopaxi has a reputation of generating new and ingenious designs, but its newest product, the Inti 2, takes innovation to a whole new level.
As a busy neuroscience graduate student and teacher of undergrad psychology courses at Duke University, Stephanie Santistevan-Swett needed a versatile outfit to get her through busy days. Rompers—loose, one-piece garments combining a shirt and pants or shorts—were the perfect mix of comfy and cute, but she was having a hard time finding any with sleeves. So she took her love of fashion and her 2009 BYU marketing degree, patched together with some imagination and passion, and stitched together her own company, Eva Jo, to design, manufacture, and sell comfortable and fashionable clothing.
It only took five seconds for Ryan Judkins’s boss to approve his beard plan. Surprised, Judkins, a sales representative for Callaway Golf and a normally clean-cut guy, asked, “You do realize I might have a beard that’s five, six, or seven inches long at one point?”
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.
The red Porsche featured clean lines and 390 horsepower, but for fifteen-year-old Eric Watson, it might as well have been the family station wagon. This was the first time the high schooler had slid into the driver’s seat.
Natalie Cann is used to good things coming in pairs. After taking time off when her twins were born, the 1998 marketing graduate was approached by two different clients with consulting projectsan opportunity too good to pass up.