Spring Break Trip to California

February 26-March 5, 2011

For their spring break, a group of Saunders College of Business Honors students traveled to Southern California to visit companies and network with alumni. Eleven students and two staff members flew across the country for a week to experience a completely different culture from snowy Rochester. The trip covered a broad array of industries and opportunities for business professionals. The Honors students talked with alumni and business professionals in businesses ranging from software companies to television studios.

Monday afternoon, the group met with Phil Ohme ’99 at Intuit to discuss the opportunities for business majors in the software industry. The tour of the company started with sitting in on a meeting with all the product managers in the various corporate locations via videoconference. Students helped to keep the meeting lively and added to a pre-brainstorming session. The group later talked with two product managers and the VP of Software Development. Topics such as design thinking, entrepreneurship, and market research drove the discussions and gave the group from RIT a glimpse of what it was like to work at Intuit.

The Honors students hosted an alumni event at Dillon’s Irish Pub in Los Angeles Tuesday night. Jen Smith, ’06 helped to organize the event and publicize for it. Former students who attended the event included: Jesse Arnold, PJ Gaynard, Jim McPartlin, Curtis Sherman, Debra (Segar) Sherman, Mike Timm, and Brian Veronica. The students enjoyed the opportunity to speak with industry professionals that came from RIT and are using their education in their lives. The event even served as a reunion since some of the alumni had not seen each other in 20 years.

The week was not all business meetings and alumni visits. One morning, the group of Saunders students met up with fellow Honors students from the Kate Gleason College of Engineering to attend a taping of the Price is Right. The group also had an opportunity to visit the San Diego Zoo and tour Old Town while in San Diego. Some students even attended an LA Clippers game one evening.

Following the visit to the Price is Right, the students visited Harold Gutierrez ’99 at Red Bull North America. Harold is the outgoing finance manger for North America and will be starting his new position as regional finance director for Red Bull in May. Harold talked about how important it is to get your work done in school and how it will reward you in the future. With an unlimited supply of Red Bulls, the Honors students were eager to learn about working for a large, international company that focuses its efforts on creating a culture around high intensity, full-throttle sports.

The final day of the trip was filled with visits and culminated with a tour of the W Hotel Hollywood by Jim McPartlin ’88. Being the week after the Oscars, Hollywood was buzzing with excitement, and that meant a busy week for Jim. After providing accommodations to multiple celebrities at his hotel and bringing his staff to the opening night of Avenue Q, Jim was gracious enough to give the group an all-access tour of one of the nicest hotels in Hollywood. From rooftop pools to multi-million dollar condos, the W Hollywood encompasses the fame and fortune of Hollywood. The students enjoyed discussing with Jim what it was like to interact with celebrities and manage such a popular hotel. It was sad to see the week come to a close, but the visit to the W Hollywood definitely concluded with a bang.

Over the course of the trip, students also met with a panel of business professionals at Hewlett-Packard; Bob Carroll ’08, software engineer at DefenseWeb Technologies; several product managers at Yahoo!; Patrick Garney of Nickelodeon Studios; and business managers at KABC-TV Los Angeles. Eric Senna ’91 was an active contributor to the activities in the Los Angeles area, and helped to put together the visit to KABC-TV.The challenge for next year will be to top this action-packed week.