In honor of Veterans Day, we interview four current FEMBA students, each from a different branch of the military: Stacey Mercado (’22), U.S. Navy; Bob DeLullo (’22), U.S. Coast Guard; Jamie Long (’22), U.S. Air Force; Austin Carroll Keeley (’22), U.S. Marine Corps.

In a hurry? Below is a trailer from the above full-length interview, that captures the Veterans Day Thank You.

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Brittany Blackamore (FEMBA ’16) discusses her successful career transition to Boston Consulting Group and her nonprofit organization, Suitcase of Joy.

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Recent graduate of the class of 2020 Tina Pham, Category Manager at Amazon Go Grocery talks about her experience going through the Fully-Employed MBA (FEMBA) program as a career enhancer in the retail industry before becoming a career switcher and getting a new job at Amazon.

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Recent graduate of the class of 2020 Rob Busalacchi, Investment Banking Associate at Barclays talks about his experience going through the Fully-Employed MBA (FEMBA) program as a former Marine.

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Recent graduate of the class of 2020 Dominique Kagele, Global Product Strategy— Heme/Onc, Integrated Insights Leader talks about her experience going through the Fully-Employed MBA (FEMBA) program as a working mother.

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Growing up in China, Sophie Gao dreamed of an American experience. Her father made sacrifices to pursue becoming a medical doctor, and Sophie followed his work-hard example to get herself to the U.S. for college and career. She completed her Anderson MBA while living and working in Arizona and, distance notwithstanding, served as a FEMBA Council member and tutor. She was an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion student representative and, in 2020, she co-founded the nonprofit Humans of Wuhan to educate people and diminish racism. Through on-campus recruiting, she landed a new job at Amazon she’ll start right after graduation. Her advice for incoming FEMBA students? “Be ready to have fun. Be ready to be open-minded.”

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A decade after earning her Anderson MBA, double Bruin Kate Greenberg (B.A. ’04, ’10) has led a remarkable career. When she was an undergraduate, the communications job she does now for the Washington Nationals’ charitable arm didn’t exist. She’s gone from managing PR for high-profile companies like Disney to shaping the communication strategies of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, and she is now immersed in the #NATS4GOOD community response fund. Perks along the way have included seeing her name inscribed on a Nationals 2019 World Series championship ring and meeting President Barack Obama.

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Ashley Merrill (’15) launched her sleepwear business, Lunya, one month after starting business school in Anderson’s FEMBA Flex program — and a few weeks after finding out she was pregnant. She initially couldn’t picture how she’d manage all of it at once. “Confidence was one of the gifts of business school,” she says. “It wasn’t like I went to accounting class and that was the gift, it was feeling like I could wrap my head around business terminology, basic structures of business and leadership.” Now she is “reinventing sleepwear for the modern woman,” including some very recognizable figures.

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Get to know Brent Pressentin and, 30 minutes later, you might be managing your money better than you were before. Despite the peripatetic nature of his early career, the self-described Cheese Head says, “Planning is a consistent theme in my life,” something he learned to value at 23 working for E&J Gallo. Post-college, he test-drove the carbon-fiber Trek bike Lance Armstrong rode in his fifth Tour de France, got his feet wet in internet security and chased the girl of his dreams to Washington, D.C. But He found his “why” in wealth management when he earned his MBA from UCLA Anderson — which he is not above rubbing in his siblings’ faces.

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Anika Sharin (’20) has commuted from the Bay Area to L.A. for three years because she chose UCLA Anderson over UC Berkeley. She keeps her base up north because she was hired by fellow alumnus Paul Badawi (’00), who founded the Silicon Valley-based company Sight Sciences. “The way we talk about sharing success at Anderson,” says Sharin, “he is really doing that.” Now, as she prepares to graduate, Sharin reflects on her Anderson SuperSaturday admission interview experience, launching her own health care startup, being a powerful woman in tech and FEMBA puppies (of course).

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Even the assistant dean and CFO of the UCLA School of Law had to overcome his fear of public speaking. Double Bruin and alumni board member Steve Yu is an active mentor and tireless advocate of higher education, yet he says doing the dishes is crucial to staying productive. The winner of the UCLA alumni network’s 2017 Volunteer of the Year Award proves he’s just like us.

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Located in San Diego and a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist in rowing, Susan now works for a medical research company that is working on a coronavirus vaccine.

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In my first-ever, “COVID-19 home-edition”, I video interview Joel Searls ’17, on March 19, 2020.

Before UCLA Anderson, Joel was an officer in the United States Marine Corps. What can Joel teach us about dealing with COVID-19? Joel and I talk about the life-and-death training he received in the United States Marine Corps and what that might teach us all about how to deal with living through this unique chapter.

Joel generously explores how he has been able to re-create his career four times so far, from being a theater major producing a full play, to being a military officer, to associate producing a full-length Hollywood movie the year after earning his MBA, to now becoming an investment banker. He tells about his perspective on networking and we reminisce about the time he brought the Back to the Future DeLorean to FEMBApalooza!

Enjoy!

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