Saturday, October 27, 2007

BYU MBA's and Soldiers in Iraq

I may spin back into BYU MBA information from time to time. It was a great experience and I loved my time there. After spending two years with the same bunch of people, going through academic struggles, births, marriages, and hours of foosball, you tend to create deeper relationships. I currently have a friend, Dana Tucker http://danatucker.blogspot.com/, who had to leave the program early because he was called into active duty with the Army. He is a Major and is currently running one of the Iraqi police training facilities. Several of my other friends took jobs with Microsoft in Seattle in their HR Leadership Development Program called TRAX. I am in a similar program for Amazon.com, also based in Seattle.

My program includes three, 10 month rotations. My first is in Fernley, Nevada where I work as an HR generalist in one of their largest fulfillment centers. At this time of the year and for the rest of the year, I won't be spending much time at my desk. We have about 900 full-time Amazon employees, however we are in the process of bringing on between 1400 and 1600 temporary associates in order to handle the increased volume we get between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm already feeling the effects of the increased workload. My wife and I have four children and I feel like Amazon moving toward Christmas is like my wife moving towards delivery. The building is getting more painful by the day with more arms and legs in an increasingly cramped space.

I'm the new Scoutmaster in Fernley. I am an Eagle Scout but ironically enough I hate camping. As such, I'm not surprised that this is the second time I've been punished with this calling. That being said, the boys I have are surprisingly fun. My 12 year old son Christian is among them and this will give me a good opportunity to jump start his scouting journey. I feel like my mother earned about 18 of the twenty something merit badges I was awarded, so now it is my turn to earn them as they are being awarded to my son. :-)



Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Career Change

I guess I should give a bit more to the story. I originally went to Brigham Young University and graduated in Pre-Med in 1999 intending to become a Physical Therapist. I was accepted to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and earned my Masters in Physical Therapy in 2001.


After graduating I started work in Heppner, Oregon as the Director of a small clinic while helping the Heppner High School football team (the Mustangs) as both the trainer and a bit as the kicking coach. I worked as a PT for 3.5 years focusing mainly on sports rehab. In my first year of PT school however, I already knew that I would be getting my MBA. I began searching on BYU's MBA home-site since both my brother and my uncle had graduated from the Marriott school previously. That home page that I spent so much time on, devouring information and hoping for acceptance has now included a bit of me. In an attempt to promote the program by showing profiles of specific students, BYU chose me as their poster-boy. http://marriottschool.byu.edu/mba/ (I'm not getting any royalties)


In July of 2004 I took the GMAT as my initial step towards school and did well enough to get in. A 640 is not the greatest score a person could get, but it's certainly not the worst, and with my level of prep (next to none) I was satisfied. I also got into one of the best schools in the country, so says the Wall Street Journal. Their 2007 rankings place BYU as the #1 regional school in the country. The WSJ separates the 18 so-called "national" schools that typically draw applicants from across the country and have class sizes from 500 to over 1000 per year. Regional schools include the other three hundred and some odd schools at Universities across the country who typically have class sizes from 50 up to a few hundred.


BYU's class size is relatively small but is increasing. Class sizes have typically been in the 120's over the last few decades but with new construction thanks to a grant from the Marriott family, BYU is increasing it's class size. I was in the class of 2007 which included 118 students. The class of 2008 has just under 140 and the class of 2009 is just under 160. It is my understanding that BYU intends to increase their class size over the next 3 years up to 250 full-time students per class. In speaking with Jim Stice, BYU's MBA Director of academics, their biggest concern in expanding the class size so rapidly is the dilution of talent that typically comes with it.


Typically GMAT scores have averaged around 650ish over the last 5 years. The class of 2007's average was 660. The first year of expansion with the class of 2008 saw GMAT scores dip to an average of 648. This was a bit of a concern for the administration, but they forged ahead with their expansion plans. The class of 2009 that was just admitted averaged 661 and was a huge encouragement. The WSJ rankings over the past few years have had an effect on the quality of students who view BYU as a solid option. BYU has gone from 6th to 5th to 3rd, and finally to 1st over the past 4 years. The WSJ has just recently begun ranking B-schools and BYU has come out looking very good in these recruiter driven rankings.


In my next post, I anticipate relaying my Internship experiences. I was lucky enough to have two internships that I would have had no chance at getting had I not been at BYU.

Fernley Nevada

Goodbye Provo, Hello Fernley!!


We moved to Fernley on August 3rd. Since I graduated on my Birthday on April 26th, and my first day wasn't with Amazon wasn't until August 13th, I decided to get another internship. I went to work for the RBL Group which is a Human Resources consulting firm. It was nice to get paid some money while the family enjoyed the beautiful view from our place on the hill.


The kids spent the summer running through the sprinklers and jumping on the trampoline. Christian finally turned 12 in June so Jennifer and I were able to go on a few unfettered dates.