One might not expect an American Catholic priest living in the slums of Bangkok and BYU students to have much in common. But Father Joe Maier, founder of the Human Development Foundation, and seven students enrolled in the Marriott School field studies program found common ground as they worked together to better the lives of Thai children.
Improving lives was Father Joe Maier’s goal when he founded the Human Development Foundation. His mission of saving abandoned Thai children with AIDS began with one kindergarten built in the center of a slum where four drug houses and a prostitution shanty once stood. Three decades later, the foundation has expanded to forty kindergartens and six orphanages spread across Bangkok. With his foundation growing, Maier began looking for ways to make it more efficient. He was contacted by some LDS missionaries who referred him to the Marriott School field studies program.
The group of MBA, MPA and a master’s of French student that makes up the field studies program spent a week touring the facilities of the foundation, interviewing the employees, and looking for ways to streamline its business operations as well as find new funding.
“Our job is to help them find money or new opportunities to grow,” says Jessica Johnson, a first-year MBA student from Houston, who traveled with the group. “We looked for what was working well, what wasn’t, how they could improve what they do, and then how they could increase their donor base.”
The students’ research was not only beneficial to the foundation but also gave them an opportunity to stretch academically and professionally.
“The real world is always so different from case studies,” says Kristin Hawkes, a first-year MBA student from Taylorsville, Utah, who was a member of the team. “We had to deal with the unexpected while still getting the job done. Sometimes we struggled to make decisions as a group, but it was a great lesson in professionalism and leadership.”
Tamara Masters, a part-time Marriott School faculty who traveled with the students, agrees. “The significance for the class is that they got to investigate a business and apply the skills they’ve been learning in school,” she says. “They tied together their knowledge of finance and marketing to help people who are in the business of improving lives.”
Currently, the class is working to extract the data they gathered from the employee interviews and to create a database where they will be able to more easily identify trends. Although the students will not return to Bangkok, they plan to make specific proposals and suggestions to Maier through conference calls. They will also send their files on to Maier and the foundation.
“The mission of BYU and the Marriott School is to increase the knowledge and the well-being of our human family,” Masters says. “Father Joe’s business is one of improving lives and saving children from a terrible fate. This is a chance to breathe new life into the organization and perhaps take care of even more children down the road. Helping a business that’s in the business of helping people is a wonderful thing to be a part of.”
The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally ranked programs in accounting, business management, information systems, organizational behavior and entrepreneurship. The mission of the Marriott School is to educate men and women of faith, character and professional ability who will become outstanding managers and leaders throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.
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Writer: Camilla Hodge