Fall Semester 2007

Since returning to New Haven from Seattle my time has been consumed by the Yale School of Management. Between class, extracurricular activities, and the job search I have had to squeeze what little time was remaining for myself, my family, and my friends (obviously, blogging was not included in my things to do list). While my time with school has been busy it has also been successful.

My courses during the fall semester were excellent. It was my first opportunity to take a full elective schedule; so, I took Marketing Strategy, Corporate Finance, Macroeconomics, Financial Statement Analysis, Developing Winning Strategies, and Behavioral & Institutional Economics. To go along with my 20 credits of classes, I was also selected as an advisor for the Leadership Development Program, interviewer for the Admissions Office, and coordinator of the Net Impact Deloitte Case Competition. And most importantly, I found a job. There were three criteria that any position I considered needed to meet: 1 - a rotational leadership development program, 2 - a product I can support, and 3 - a midwestern location. Of the positions that I pursued, one opportunity rose to the top as an ideal fit, Whirlpool Corporation. The company is the number one producer and marketer of major appliances worldwide. I will be a marketing manager in the Brand Portfolio Leadership Development Program, rotating through product management, category management, and merchandising management. I am very excited about the prospects of this position!

While free time was in short supply, I did my best to enjoy what little was available to me. The highlights of the fall and winter were an early October New England Foliage Color Tour and hiking Sleeping Giant State Park; a New Haven Halloween with all of my wife's family; the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with all of my family; My daughter's first Birthday; Christmas in Michigan; and purchasing a home. I could elaborate on the beauty, fun, and excitement of these events, but I will instead let the pictures speak for themselves.

Northwest Massachusetts, just south of Vermont

The base of Sleeping Giant State Park, Mt. Carmel, Connecticut

A great float at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Thanks for the new hat, Mom & Dad!

As you can tell from the date of this post, the winter semester (and my last) has started. I am taking fewer classes and many of my extracurricular activities have been completed, so I plan to be spending a lot more time doing the things that I enjoy. Graduation is at the end of May and it is amazing to me that my MBA experience is nearly complete, but I am very fortunate to have been blessed with such a great time!

Summer Internship Review

This summer I worked as a Marketing and Strategic Planning Associate at World Vision’s U.S. headquarters near Seattle. World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. In 2006, World Vision served more than 100 million people, worked in 97 nations, and more than 3 million children benefited directly from child sponsorship. World Vision employed 23,000 staff members and raised $2.1 billion in cash and goods for its work.

At World Vision I worked closely with the organization’s marketing leadership team. My primary responsibility was to assist product managers in establishing three-year marketing and operations strategic plans by completing market and trend analysis. The product managers, in conjunction with my project team, ultimately presented their plans to the Senior Vice President for approval. In addition to this work, I assisted multiple product categories on various projects, including the creation of a metric-based core report, category launch plan, and financial models.

What I enjoyed most about my summer experience was the opportunity to learn from outstanding leaders and practitioners. In addition to daily interaction with marketing directors and product managers, I had lengthy one-on-one conversations with the entire executive team, including World Vision U.S. President Rich Stearns. My experience at World Vision proved to be an exceptional opportunity and helped me clarify many goals for my career going forward.

Fourth of July*

What a great 4th this year! We decided to venture out and see the Oregon Pacific Coast. Destination: Cannon Beach, home of the famous Haystack Rock. It was a beautiful day and an even more beautiful drive as we headed west. We decided early on that we were going to enjoy the journey and not just rush to the destination - a big step for us! Doug found a parking spot in a prime location, we toured the quaint town and then hit the beach! The beach was sandy, like the beaches in Michigan. The beach was also chilly, like the beaches in Michigan. So we were right at home.

Haystack Rock

The little one did great. She's still at the stage where she wants Mama and Daddy and doesn't really care what else is going on around her. Unless it's a kid. Or a puppy. And then she's mesmerized. So she wasn't excited that we were at the beach, but she was happy as ever. She even napped on the blanket that we brought, under an umbrella.

We ate dinner at a little diner and then back to the beach to stroll along the rocks jutting up out of the ocean. This was our favorite part. Haystack cut the waves, so on our side of it the waves were coming from two different directions and left a very shallow area. We stayed here for a while and watched the beginning of a wedding on the beach!

Waves crashing in near Haystack Rock

Then off to Portland for the next two nights. Great hotel - 4 stars won off Priceline. Great location - right downtown. Great company - the three of us without an agenda! Portland is a nice, smaller scale, clean city. It doesn't seem too unique or special - nothing about it really stood out to us. We were glad that we stayed there, though, and we all really did enjoy our time there.

Next stop: Mt. St. Helens. Amazing. We were just in awe of it. The Johnston Ridge Observatory was the way to go (named after the volcanologist on duty when she exploded and lost his life as a result). We were 5 miles away, looking straight at the "new" lava dome which is still exloding, albeit less dramatically than in the past. The steam was evident in the center of the "new" mountain that is rebuilding within the "old" mountain. The rangers were very knowledgable, friendly and excited about it all which made it all the more interesting for us. And the movie was definitely worth seeing - what an amazing feat of nature. God's creativity and power never ceases to amaze me. Another amazing thing: we saw friends from the midwest! Friends we haven't seen in quite a while! That just made our day.

Mt. St. Helens from WA-504

The "new" lava dome is currently steaming amid its eruptions!

We can't believe the opportunities we've had this summer. I have a feeling we'll look back and 1) be so grateful for our time here.....2) be so grateful that the little one is so good, so flexible, and so happy.......3) be so grateful that we did it all together!

*post written by Doug's better half

Yellowstone National Park

On Thursday, May 17th, my family and I visited Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It was a fantastic experience! The wildlife and scenery in Yellowstone are breathtaking. I will let the pictures below speak for themselves...

Lake Yellowstone

The wolf on the left was part of a pack that hunted an elk the night before this picture was taken. The pack briefly left the carcass and the grizzly bear promptly stole it. In this picture the grizzly feels that the wolf is getting too close, so its stands on its hind legs to challenge the wolf. The wolf promptly lays down.

Elk

From the East Entrance to Yellowstone

Hayden Valley

Artist's Point

Boiling mud

Bison

While not a part of Yellowstone, we did stop at Mt. Rushmore in Rapid City, SD.

So, I'm not very good at this...

Not that my readership level was very high to begin with, but I am sure that my 3 month absence did not help maintain what I did have. For those of you who, for some reason, ended up back at my blog, thanks!

There are four main things that have happened this second semester of school. My daughter has been developing at an extremely fast pace, my family and I went to Michigan for a whirlwind tour, I secured an internship, and my car was stolen.

My daughter was 20 weeks old yesterday. She rolls over, laughs & smiles, and is on the verge of sitting-up on her own. I am extremely bias, but I think she is the most beautiful baby ever. My wife is absolutely wonderful with her and it is amazing to watch the two of them interact. I am so proud of both of them.

During my spring break we went to Michigan. It was the first time my daughter flew in an airplane (14 weeks) and met a lot of her family and friends. We had a great time visiting everyone. After flying into Detroit we drove over 1000 miles. We made stops in the southeast, southcentral, southwest, central, and northwest parts of the state. Here is a picture of the lighthouse at Ludington Beach.

This summer we are looking forward to another adventure. I have an internship with World Vision in Seattle, Washington. I targeted World Vision as the organization I wanted to work for from the very beginning and they offered me an excellent opportunity in their donor engagement and strategic planning divisions. You can check them out by following the link along the right-hand side of this page. We are hoping to get to know the area well and hopefully get to see Seattle in person like it is depicted in this photo.

As for my car, it was a sad farewell to the highest quality vehicle I have owned (which is a good sized dataset considering I have owned nine vehicles). We purchased the Civic with 60.000 miles and said good-bye to the car with 174,000.

I will try to do better with updating this blog. Maybe with some consistent posting I can rebuild the readership...

An Amazing Two Months!

To say that a lot has changed since my last post is an understatement. The two biggest changes/events were the birth of my daughter and my trip to China. In addition to those two events I attended the Yale - Harvard football game, celebrated my birthday, finished my first semester of school, had family visit, and spent a good amount of time with my wife.

The birth of my daughter was an absolutely amazing experience. My wife was fantastic and so strong. We were supported by a great staff at the Yale-New Haven hospital. Everyone finished the long day healthy and in great spirits. It has since been wonderful spending time with my girls.

January 3 - 14 I was on the other side of the globe. I spent time with 43 of my classmates in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. Each city was very unique and provided a great experience. We visited some of the premier companies in the world and high-ranking Chinese governement officials. The significance of what I learned will remain with me throughout my career. I am grateful for the opportunity!



View of Hong Kong Skyline from Victoria's Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island.

View of Shanghai's skyling in the Pudong District. Nothing existed in this area prior to '95.

"Center of the City" Monument in Tiananmen Square.

Lufthansa Case Competition

On November 3, a few of my classmates and I joined together to form a case competition team. We were competing with other teams from SOM on a case presented by Lufthansa airlines. After a long weekend together, our team put together a great proposal and was chosen for the finals. This is where the story gets exciting. The finals were to be held on Long Island on November 17. If we were chosen as the grand prize winners, we would each receive round-trip airfare to Europe! So, we put in a great amount of time and effort going into the finals and were very prepared. Our presentation went great and we thought we were in good shape to win. However, that wasn't to be. We ended up finishing in second place by one point. It turns out that we had the best presentation and all of the judges wanted us to win, but we were missing a major component of the case requirement: revenue generated through the implementation of our recommendations. We couldn't believe because we considered this and decided that "if you can't do it right, don't do it at all." Our team couldn't do it right because we didn't have enough data available! With that said, our team learned a significant lesson and we walked away with a nice new suitcase.