Table of Contents
What's New About the New Economy?
Networking: Anytime, Anyplace...
Networking: Anytime, Anyplace…
Peg Kelsey Cornwell '79, director of career planning who is on sabbatical in Spring 2001, reports on how the St. Lawrence network works, and expands in the least expected ways:
A little over a year ago, Michael W. Clark '81 gave a very generous financial gift to the University with the intention that we in career planning use some of the money to take students to New York City for networking and job interview events. Accordingly, last fall we arranged for a van to take students to our annual Alumni in Finance Networking event, which we have held in New York for the past four years.
In order to hold the event, we need a space we can afford to rent or borrow. Fred Taylor P'94, vice chair of US Trust, had given us the space for the past three years, but was unable to this year. Assistant Director of Career Planning Kathy Archibald contacted James W. "Jay" Ireland III '77, president of NBC television stations and parent of Ben Ireland '00, and was able to secure their dining room overlooking Central Park.
In the middle of this planning we were invited by Merrill Lynch to bring 25 students to New York for a day so the students could learn about and meet their financial consulting group. We later learned that Keith Henry '84 had recently become a sales manager in their World Financial Center office and was responsible for getting us invited.
So we drove 14 students in two vehicles to New York City. At the NBC dining room we were joined by nine alumni (Jonathan Biele '92, Anya Burke '00, Stephen Dow '99, Penn Egbert '99, Ramsey Goodrich '91, Jared Heuer '97, Manish Kapoor '97, Chris Yoshida '00 and Holly Young '96), who talked about their work and gave suggestions about how to get started in a job search. Two of them, Anya and Steve, got their jobs directly as a result of alumni networking, and several of the others used the system extensively.
The next day at Merrill Lynch, Keith let us in on his role in getting us there. During the day we enjoyed presentations by Kari Bayer '94 and Andy Katchen '96.But the most remarkable networking moment was yet to come. On the way home, we got stuck in traffic coming up the West Side Drive. Kathy was driving the van when she saw someone in the car next to her signaling her to roll down the window. He yelled, "I'm an alum--what are you doing here?"
After Kathy explained the day's events, he said that she should contact him because he would be interested in getting involved as well. He introduced himself as a principal at Morgan Stanley. It's wonderful the way Laurentians connect to SLU, even in New York City traffic!