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The sports industry is one of the most diverse job markets in the world today.  Whether or not you can hit a 95 mph fastball, dunk a basketball, or throw a perfect pass, there are still many ways you can break into the industry.  While organizing our sports panel, we were able to get 3 excellent guest speakers who have all developed a career in the field that they love.  They were Jason Belzer, Erica Schietinger, and Kyle Stack.  After listening to their panel discussion, there were several important messages that we were able to take away that could help in the management of a career in sports or whatever career you are interested in.

Jason Belzer, Founder and Director of GAME, Inc., mentioned that “It can take 20 years to build a reputation, and it can take 5 minutes to destroy it.”  Being a representative of various coaches and players, Jason recognized the fact that to be successful, you need to forge relationships, build a good reputation, and to also network whenever possible.

Erica Schietinger, VP of Corporate Communications at Chelsea Piers, explained that she was able to get the perfect corporate job because of someone she had a great business relationship with for over 30 years.  Being seen as a trustworthy and responsible person with her work, she even had the opportunity to work with the NFL’s Gene Upshaw, who was a player with the Oakland Raiders, and later on the Executive Director of the NFL’s Player Association.

Kyle Stack, a freelance sports journalist who has written for established organizations like amNewYork, MLB.com, and ESPN, discussed that you should not take rejection personally.  He said that his sports articles had been rejected many times but he was able to persevere, and now his articles can be read by sports fans all around the world on the Internet.

It was a great privilege for all of us to connect with our guest speakers and we hope you were all able to take something away from this panel discussion as well.  Whether you are interested in a sports career or not, the information and advice that the speakers were able to provide can help all of us no matter what career you do decide to pursue.

Memorable Quotes:

“Under-promise and over-deliver.” – Jason Belzer

“Opportunities can come from anywhere.” – Erica Schietinger

As part of our Panel assignment on Changing Industries, we coordinated a panel of speakers with educational and career backgrounds in information technology and energy management/provision respectively. Our speakers, Michael Hidary, Dennis Quinn, and Manny Cancel, discussed the role of technology in a bid to ensure a greener future through the utilization of alternative forms of energy, example solar energy. While there were numerous take-aways following the in-class discussion, the ones mentioned are primarily those that resonated with some of the material we previously discussed in class.

Dennis Quinn mentioned, “Entrepreneurship is something you definitely need passion for.” The theme about liking what you do is one that has been discussed numerously in this class. He emphasized the importance of enjoying what you do in order to succeed in it; be it in one’s entrepreneurial or intrepreneurial endeavors. Dennis shared another excellent piece of advice, “One door will open another door. You never know what that other door will be if you never open the first,” emphasizing the importance of exploring new options, and making full use of whatever is presented to us, particularly as students in an ever changing, ever globalizing world. All the speakers were optimistic about the future of green technology, claiming that with “proper planning, and appropriate allocation of resources” companies can make great strides in attaining a greener future.

Zerxis Press, Anthony Marsan, Jessica Dawoud, Victor Kassab, Shane Thomas, Vadim Gellerman

“Dream, Join, Volunteer (not work), and Passion” were the 4 reoccurring themes throughout our panel discussion. Each of our panelists choose to work at the job that they are now because they are passionate about what they are doing and they don’t think they are working. They are simply volunteering their time and playing.

Despite the fact that each of our panelists came from different backgrounds, they use the skills they acquired through experiences to reach out to help those with needs. Our panelists all wanted to help people to succeed. The panelists told us their stories that led them to who they are today. For Paul, his entrepreneurial act started because of an “idea.” Jodi founded NIARA Consulting because she got into an accident and still wanted to make good use of her time while she was sitting on her bed. For Shah, he immigrated to United States and Mary Ellen started because of her transplant to her son. Shah said that everything you do will come back to affect your life, and we think that these people were all able to reach beyond what they wanted for themselves and are now focusing on helping others, which is truly a benefit for all.

From the panelists, we learned that when looking for jobs, we should “follow our hearts.” In addition according to Paul Cahill, he doesn’t work, he play. No two days for him are the same. We all learned that money should not be our only motivator. We need to do things that we are passionate about. Shah provided us with steps in goal setting and Jodi gave very helpful tips on networking and finding opportunities in every relationship you have. Last but not least, Mary Ellen showed us that there are opportunities out there and you just need to find it yourself. For her, she found out the tools she needed to write her books and share stories for free.

All the panelists started out by finding something they were passionate about. Paul, Jodi, Mary Ellen and Shah all had a passion for helping people and they turned their passions into a big part of their lives. Like Paul said, he doesn’t work, he plays.

Memorable Quotes:

“I know how to do everything for free.”– Mary Ellen

“I don’t work, I play.  No two days are ever the same.”– Paul Cahill

“Money can’t buy happiness, but without money, life is miserable.” – Shah Feroze

“Don’t box yourself in. Volunteer to explore something you might want to do. Try it before you jump in fully.” – Jodi Brockington

Name: Jonathan Engel

Company: Baruch College – School of Public Affairs

Position: Associate Dean of the School of Public Affairs & Professor

Phone: 646-312-4786

Email: [email protected]

Name: Mary – Ellen Rozak

Company: Louie’s Legacy

Position: New York Area Coordinator

Phone: 718-755-9302

Email: [email protected]

Name: Shah Feroze

Company: MassMutual Financial Group

Position: Financial Services Professional

Phone: 917-306-7362

Email: [email protected]

Name: Jodi Brockington

Company: NIARA Consulting

Position: Founder

Phone: 917-941-5698

Email: [email protected]

Name: Paul Cahill

Company: Cahill Associates, Inc.

Position: Founder

Phone: 203-454-2241

Email: [email protected]

Panel Members –

Jason Belzer Founder of Global Athlete Management Enterprises, Inc. (GAME, Inc.)

Bio:

Jason is founder of Global Athlete Management Enterprises, Inc. (GAME, Inc.), an agency that specializes in the career management and marketing of coaches. GAME, Inc. handles contract negotiations, marketing, press relations, shoe and apparel deals and broadcasting opportunities for over two-dozen college basketball and football coaches. In addition, his firm runs the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT), a 24-team mid-major postseason college basketball tournament. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Jewish Coaches Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that supports Jewish basketball coaches and athletic administrators of all levels around the world. Jason is a graduate of Rutgers University and Rutgers School of Law.

Kyle Stack Journalist

E-mail: [email protected]; Twitter: @KyleStack Website: http://kylestack.com/

Bio:

Hi there, I work as a writer/reporter in New York City covering business, health, technology and media in professional sports. I also spend my work time reporting for a market research publication.

I moved to New York a few years ago from Montana (via Los Angeles) and decided to switch careers from Landscape Design to Journalism. Since then, I’ve worked for MLB.com as a fantasy writer and have written for ESPN the Magazine, SI.com, AOL Fanhouse and WeightWatchers.com, among other print and digital publications.

Erica Schietinger VP of corporate communications for Chelsea Piers

Contact Number 212.336.6870; Email: [email protected]

Bio:

Erica Schietinger, is Vice President of Corporate Communications and Neighborhood Relations at Chelsea Piers Management. In this capacity, she is responsible for complex-wide management of all media and neighborhood relations for Chelsea Piers. Her responsibilities with the media include working with the individual venues and the marketing department to determine how best to promote new programs and events at Chelsea Piers to the general public. Additionally, Ms. Schietinger maintains day-to-day relationships with the top national and local news outlets in New York City. In order to foster neighborhood relations, maintain an active role in the community and respond to its changing needs, Ms. Schietinger attends monthly community board meetings, is a member of the Hudson River Park Trust Advisory Council, the Bayview Correctional Facility Community Advisory Board, the Hudson Guild Beacon Advisory Council, the Greenwich Village Chamber of Commerce Strategic Planning Committee and works with local not-for-profit community groups and elected officials to keep the community informed about free public events and activities.

Preliminary Questions:

1. Can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
2. How did you choose the field you currently work in?
3. We know that being motivated is a significant trait in order to be successful. Can you tell us how you maintain motivated?
4. What advice would you give to students who would like to break into your industry?
5. What were some of the hardest obstacles you had to overcome?

Organizing a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and a costume competition was a fantastic learning experience. The opportunity allowed our group to really understand the importance and difficulty of planning, working with multiple organizations, marketing and executing.

The most significant take away we found was the need to be flexible. Although our group laid out a precise schedule and delegated assignments, working with the BPAC and other administrators required that we change our plans and go with the flow. There were also significant constraints present such as when we were able to rent the theater and the choice of movie. Looking back, the choice of Rocky Horror might not have been best suited or targeted for a Baruch audience. Interestingly enough, the SVA students moved out of their dorms the weekend before the movie showing and we lost the ability to attract what would have been more of our target audience. It was also difficult to attract people to come to an event on a Tuesday evening close to finals.

Given these constraints, however, we do believe we were largely successful. There was great energy in the audience and true fans present. The costumes were fantastic as well.  If given another opportunity to organize a similar event, we would very heavily target, choose a more appropriate date and time and implement a different marketing strategy. We focused heavily on flyers and social media, but it seems we needed to do greater personal selling. Furthermore, we should have taken more time to really understand the culture of Rocky Horror and readjust our marketing strategy based on that understanding.

Manuel J. “Manny” Cancel

Con Edison- Director of Technology Services

Email: [email protected]

Tel: 212 460 6058

Manny Cancel is the Director of Technology Services in Con Edison’s Information Technology organization.  Mr. Cancel has worked in many organizations at Con Edison during his career.  The different positions allowed him to obtain a detailed understanding of the utility industry especially the customer service and electric transmission/distribution disciplines.  Each position contained information technology related responsibilities so he also obtained a great deal of practical experience applying technology solutions to real-life business situations.  In addition, he obtained invaluable corporate experience preparing business plans, departmental budgets and personnel development programs.

In 1993, he officially joined Con Edison’s Information Technology organization.  He initially worked as a programmer in the application development area.  He subsequently assumed positions of increasing responsibility as he developed solutions for Con Edison’s Electric Operations and Sales organizations.  In 2001, he moved over the IT infrastructure support organization and is currently responsible for the operation of the distributed and mainframe computing environments.  He is also responsible for Con Edison’s Technical Support organization and its Help Desk.

Mr. Cancel has worked with and supported a diverse set of technologies.  He has particular expertise in application development methodologies and project management. He is also well versed in Internet networking technologies and has supported various recruiting initiatives for Con Edison and conducted hundreds of interviews.  As a result, he feels he can offer students very practical advice on interview preparation and participation. Mr. Cancel is a Baruch College graduate, holding a BBA degree.

Michael Massiello Hiskey

Worldwide Data Warehouse Solutions Executive

IBM Information Management Software

[email protected]

Michael currently has responsibility for guiding a senior team of globally-based business and technology experts who are part of the Information Management Development Team.  This group is tasked with helping the regional relationship management and technical teams to accelerate the IBM Data Warehouse Solutions business by evangelizing IBM technologies, strategy and thought leadership across analytics, cloud computing and green data centers.

Michael came to IBM with the acquisition of Informix in 2001.  He has had significant roles in Development, Software, Marketing, Sales, Strategy and Operations, in the Americas and Worldwide teams.  He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he focused on management and emerging markets.

Michael returned to the US in 2010 after a successful assignment starting and running the Information Management Team within the IBM Brasil Software Lab.  He and his team worked hard to build the IM community in Latin America, connecting the sales teams, partners and clients to expand our business in this important growth market.

The Brasil Team started with a small team in Data Management Support that now stands at over 70 people working across various areas of Manufacturing and Development for Information Management, including development for Data Warehousing, Proposal and Order Development for the IBM Smart Analytics System/InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse, as well as Customer Technical Support for DB2, Cognos and Informix.

Previously, he worked as the Territory Manager responsible for small business (aka “mid-market or “general business”) in New York City, the largest market of this type for IBM.  Prior to that role, he was the Worldwide Program Marketing Manager for Informix Database products at IBM. After that, he led the IBM effort to create strategy and messaging around the “On Demand Operating Environment” and “Infrastructure Solutions”, IBM efforts to frame the open systems architecture that is now a part of Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) and is being employed around the world.

After the acquisition of the Informix Corporation, Michael managed marketing programs for the database business at the Americas and then worldwide levels for the Information Management Software Group.  He was responsible for demand generation and customer communication activity for the global Informix customer base of over 50,000 clients.  In this capacity, he led the creation of programs to reinforce and develop relationships with clients and business partners.

Prior to IBM, he was in the field sales organization at Informix, with sales, operations and field marketing positions.  In 1997, he was an analyst at Credit Suisse Asset Management, where he marketed financial products to corporations and municipalities in the northeastern United States.  Michael lives on Long Island, near the ocean with his fiancé Camila.

Dennis Quinn

Chief Operating Officer, Joule’s Assets
[email protected]
Dennis is operational lead for Joule, building processes and products as well as supervising key staff members. Dennis most recently completed the debt financing, oversaw the design and project work, and trained the staff to commission and operate a 400MW run-of-the-river hydroproject: Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Project in Madhya Prades in India.

Like Mike, Dennis was instrumental in founding the United States’ Demand Response Industry. Prior to completing the Madyah Prades Project, Dennis founded Celerity (NASDAQ:ENOC). Celerity built sustained customer relationships with many energy consumers including California State University, Calfornia Steel, The University of San Diego, Biosite Incorporated, and the San Diego Water Authority, and many other primarily large energy consumers.

Celerity also developed a pilot project (initiated and contracted with San Diego Gas and Eletric, for a ten-year stream of cash flows) in which Dennis upgraded more than 25 MWs of distributed generation (“DG”), by gaining financing for the installation of filtration and scrubbing devices on the DG, initiating and closing the sales process and overseeing every project to fruition. Then managing the installation at 15 discreet client sites. In exchange, clients offered the DG into STGNE’s and California demand response markets for a ten-year commitment.

Michael Hidary

Managing Director: GlobalSolarCenter

[email protected]

As Co-Founder of Samba Energy, Hidary has built a platform that educates residential, commercial and non- profit/gov’t clients on sustainability and renewable energy.  Through its national affiliate network, Samba manages the installation of technologies such as solar panels while utilizing gov’t programs that reduce the costs.

Michael Hidary is the investment advisor to the Hidary Family Office and Foundation. He is responsible for creating deal flow and analyzing the potential for such deals to become part of the Hidary family portfolio.

Hidary serves on the boards of Americans for Clean Energy, a political association for the renewable industry in Washington, DC and of SmartTransportation.org, an advocacy group dedicated to clean tech transport solutions.

Prior to Samba Energy, Hidary was the VP of Sales for the family’s importing business for 8 years where he built out many divisions such as Everlast and grew revenues to over $100M across different channels of distribution.

Hidary attended Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel and Babson College in Wellesley, MA.

Hidary lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife Sarah and children David, Aimee, Joshua and Chloe.