“Anyone who owns more than 400 companies and is worth billions of dollars is clearly doing many things right,” says Leggett. “I admire Richard Branson’s tenacity, and I admire his personal brand.  He had to take a lot of risks to get where he is at today, and I respect the endeavors he ventured through.”

Like Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, doing many things with tenacity appears to be among the guiding principles in Leggett’s college career. He was recently elected Associated Students Inc. (ASI) vice president and is majoring in economics with a minor in international politics.

“When I keep myself busy,” he says, “it allows me to have a fast-paced tempo, which is where I thrive.”

Leggett is a founding father of Pi Kappa Alpha (PIKE), a newly established social fraternity and was a member of the Inter Fraternity Council (IFC), where he served as vice president of finance this fiscal year.

He was a student presenter at the 2013 Resident Student Leadership Symposium and presented a 50-minute speech on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” He’s also involved with Camp Titan, CSUF’s main philanthropy, as a counselor to underprivileged children.

Leggett got involved in ASI in the spring of 2012. He represented Mihaylo College on the body’s board of directors.

“While serving as a director, I was on the ASI finance committee, allocating approximately $5.2 million budget back to the students,” says Leggett.

In addition to the campus-wide organizations Leggett is involved with, he is also a dedicated member of a number of Mihaylo business clubs. He was the Finance Association vice president of communications and is a member of the Economics Association. He is also a member of the Mihaylo leadership scholars program.

As the ASI vice president, Leggett says his team has several goals they are looking forward to implementing by the end of their term. The first thing they want to do is bring awareness to all the events that occur on campus in addition to fostering Titan Pride. “By teaming up with the athletics department, we aim to bring back pep rallies to acknowledge our athletes and get our students excited for the upcoming sporting season,” he says.

The ASI leadership is also working to ensure students’ voices are heard within the battle to lower tuition. “This is done by getting involved with the California State Student Association, which teams up with the other CSU Universities in California,” he says.

On a personal level, Leggett aspires to work right out of college in order to build professional experience before earning an MBA in international politics where he can use his education to “change the world one day in a positive light.”

Supervisor John MW Moorlach

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach praises Southern California’s weather, but once he gets into the numbers and figures of where the county and state stand, he’s not quite as positive.

Moorlach expanded on this notion during his “Orange County- One Step Forward…” presentation on May 9^th at the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics’ Executive Council-sponsored breakfast at the Hyatt Regency in Newport Beach. He discussed how the county is doing and some of the services that may jeopardize the fiscal well-being of both the county and local businesses.

Among the issues he presented, Moorlach described the dramatic increases in the county’s fund in liabilities over the years and jokingly said it doesn’t help when the retired employees are living longer, which result in adjustments.

Moorlach represents the second district on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. He served 12 years as treasurer-tax collector before his election as supervisor in 2006. He is also chairman of Orange County’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and Ending Homelessness Commission; he leads the Newport Bay Watershed Executive Committee and serves on several additional boards, commissions and committees.

The breakfast was one of many events Mihaylo’s Executive Council hosts for the Orange County business community. These events provide attendees with networking and educational opportunities in addition to the fundraising support the council garners for Mihaylo College. To join the Executive Council and shape tomorrow’s leaders, click HERE.

Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali – both men changed the way the world looked at art, and work from each of these maverick artists is on display in Mihaylo Hall.

Open from May 16 to October 4, the “Form, Figure, Frame: Works on Paper from the CSUF Art Collection” exhibit features Chagall and Dali in addition to other elite artists: Dan Flavin, Katsushika Hokusai, Käthe Kollwitz and Larry Rivers. The collection includes both modern and historical prints in a variety of printmaking techniques and mediums.

Now-retired Cal State Fullerton art department professor G. Ray Kerciu began acquiring these prints for the university in 1973. Some of the prints were created on campus, and others were donated to or acquired by the university.

The exhibit is on the third floor of Mihaylo Hall in the Dean’s Suite. Be one the first to view the CSUF Art Collection: The opening reception is on May 16, from 4 to 6 p.m.

ABOUT SIXPACK PROJECTS

Sixpack Projects is a collective of six artist/curators organizing innovative contemporary art exhibitions and events throughout Southern California. We are: Alyssa Cordova, Jennifer Frias, Lilia Lamas, Jillian Nakornthap, Jeff Rau, and Heather Richards-Siddons. For more information, visit www.sixpackprojects.com.

Scott Andersen focused on the career-development events and resources Mihaylo College offers students and maximized his job-searching efforts by networking.

It’s not a secret formula, but one that requires planning, organization and commitment. The process of seeking a job or an internship can be a long and stressful one. But attending resume workshops and networking events can help you stand out in a stack of applicants.

“CSUF has the best accounting program in Southern California and one of the best relationships with the Big 4 accounting firms,” says Andersen ’13, M.S. accountancy. “This is why I chose Mihaylo over other universities.”

While being a student, Andersen started his job search at the CSUF career center in Langsdorf Hall and asked about possible internship and employment opportunities. He was directed to their website and filled out information about his career path. “This step was crucial,” he says of the help the center provided. “It allowed me to apply for my internship through the career center.”

Andersen also attended “Meet the Firms,” an accounting networking event to help ease the process, where he met and spoke with managers and partners of various firms. This step was also crucial in his search for an internship, he adds, because it allowed him to network with elite accounting firms – an opportunity he would not likely be able to create on his own.

One of the relationships he established at the event was with KMPG, which resulted in a summer internship, and he was hired soon after.

It’s all about networking.

“By meeting them in person, a recruiter puts a face with the resume he or she is reading,” says Andersen. “If you can make a positive impression during a networking event, they will remember and possibly move you along in the process, provided you meet minimum qualifications.”

However, during the process, Andersen was worried. He did not have accounting work or tax experience and had only completed the fundamental accounting courses at Mihaylo.

This did not keep him down for too long. “I realized that they don’t expect you to know everything before you start. They want someone who is a good candidate and a quick learner.”

For graduates actively seeking jobs and internships, he says to “embrace the recruiting process and attend any event that may allow you to speak directly with the people from accounting firms. Take your education seriously, because top accounting firms will only look at resumes with great GPAs.

“When it’s all said and done, if your grades are not superior, you won’t be working for a Big 4 accounting firm straight out of college.”

It’s not easy, he adds, but stay focused. “The first semester can be challenging, but keep your eye on the goal and on finishing strong. That’s how I approached my first semester.”

She gets bored when she’s not challenged, and she wants to make a difference in the community. Megan Boldizsar ’10 (business administration-accounting) never intended to pursue a career involving math but wanted to challenge herself.

After reading Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” Boldizsar wanted to become a successful journalist. But she raised the bar higher and made the switch to international business and studied in Spain.

After returning from Europe, she was required to take an accounting course, and that’s when she surprised both herself and her family with the discovery of a new passion.

Even with her newfound dedication to accounting, Boldizsar felt her biggest weakness was math, but “willpower and dedication are all you need to turn your biggest weakness into your greatest strength,” she says.

She earned her CPA license a couple years ago, and Boldizsar just started her first term as the chair of the CalCPA Business & Industry Group. Her goal is to organize a successful year of events for the organization. Always on the move, Boldizsar is also studying for her Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) license, and she adds: “The CFE sounds like an interesting turn to take for my career.”

She was featured in CalCPA as a nominee for the Young Emerging Professionals (YEP) for her volunteer efforts that have helped increase outreach to students and young accountants. She also contributes to various charities and enjoys volunteering at the Second Harvest Food Bank.

Her long-term goal is to become a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)– “I can’t imagine working anywhere else at this point in my life,” she says.

While at Mihaylo, she was involved with the Beta Alpha Psi and the Accounting Society and encourages current undergraduates at Mihaylo to get involved as well. “Build friendships, get involved with clubs, explore your interests and soak in as much as you can.”

But most importantly, she says enjoy your time at school and always challenge yourself. “I flunked high school algebra. If I can get up and be an hour early for an 8:30 a.m. college algebra class every day just to prove a point, anyone can do it.”

Pictured form left to right: Marketing professor Chris Anicich, Zeina Itani, Ian Thomason, David Ludden, Shastina Sarkhosh, and Sales Leadership Center Co-Director Mark Mantey.

In the heat of a real-world sales-pitch scenario, Mihaylo team members took home eight of the 24 awards at the Western States Collegiate Sales Competition. The team was required to prepare a sales presentation representing their “clients,” ADP and TekSystems services, in a 12-minute role-play environment.

Competing against 12 other university teams, Mihaylo’s winning pitches placed second overall. Mihaylo’s team included business administration majors Zeina Itani, David Ludden, Shastina Sarkhosh and Ian Thomason.

“We all worked very hard, and it felt great for that hard work to pay off,” says Itani, who also placed second in individual competition. “We all helped each other, and through our teamwork we were able do well in the competition.”

Chris Anicich, marketing professor, and Sales Leadership Center Co-Director Mark Mantey are advisors to the team.

By Atul Teckchandani, management professor and guest blogger

Starting a company is tough. Arguably, the toughest part is getting people to pay for your products or services. The recommended approach for dealing with this dilemma is to do a bit of research, and get something out into the market quickly. There is no better way to judge whether people want your product or service than to see if they are willing to pay for it. Then, any future changes to the product or service should be based on customer feedback.

Often, these are not minor tweaks to the product or service, but rather significant changes to the firm’s entire way of doing business. The technical term for each time a business makes a series of significant changes concurrently is a “pivot.”

Diana showcases her custom hand-painted shoes at the Center for Entrepreneurship’s 10th Anniversary.

Meet Diana Ho. She’s a talented artist, entrepreneur and soon-to-be graduate of the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics (with a dual concentration in marketing and entrepreneurship).

Ho’s success as an entrepreneur has hinged on her ability to master the pivot. Her desire was to create a firm that offered products allowing people to express their uniqueness through their fashion. She called her firm Diana Ho Designs and initially started off selling customized shoes, which she would hand paint based on the customer’s specifications. When that didn’t go as well as expected, she pivoted to offering a seasonal collection of hand-painted shoes. While these shoes are still available for purchase, Ho realized that her primary audience was interested in more affordable ways to show off their uniqueness.

So she pivoted again and offered jewelry. And in selling her own line of jewelry, Ho has found a hit. Diana Ho Designs is currently available at Boutique Carolina in Berkeley, Taxi CDC in Los Angeles and online at www.dianahodesigns.com.

She acknowledges professor Atul Teckchandani for helping her realize the power of the pivot. “As professor Atul once told us, “never fall in love with plan A,” which is so true. My business has made many pivots since my launch,” says Ho. “I am constantly asking myself the right questions: ‘Am I solving a problem?’ ‘How scalable is this concept?’ ‘Do I want to own a brick-and-mortar or focus on distribution?’ ‘Is there a demand for my product?’”

In addition to immersing herself with learning what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, Ho has made the most of her time at CSUF by taking advantage of the resources available to help reach her goals. Whenever possible, she made Diana Ho Designs a project that she and her classmates could work on as part of a course.

In the New Venture Creation class, her group created a business plan for Diana Ho Designs. In the New Venture Launch class – where the goal is to start generating revenue – her group helped arrange for professional photos to be taken for her products, created an order management process and built an e-commerce website to start taking orders. In the Marketing Information Technology class, her group ran a Google Analytics campaign to attract new customers to her website.

“I remember pitching my first business concept in professor [David] Obstfeld’s New Venture Creation class. It was called “D.Ho Customized Shoes,” and I was so nervous, because I didn’t know how people would react,” says Ho. “But to see the progression of my business now is so valuable.

“I continued to work on Diana Ho Designs with classmates in classes such as the New Venture Launch, Marketing Information Technology, and Marketing Research Methods. If I never pitched my concept that semester Diana Ho Designs would not be where it is today.”

She also took the time to build relationships with many faculty members and continually seeks their advice on how to create a successful firm. Her network of informal advisors has opened many doors. With the guidance from those in her network Diana began focusing on distribution along with her e-commerce site. Says Ho: “The professors on campus really want to help students succeed and start them off in the right direction.”

It is clear that Ho is destined for success. A destiny she has created by combining her artistic talents with the opportunities available at Mihaylo.

Guest blogger Atul Teckchandani, assistant professor of management at Mihaylo, teaches courses in entrepreneurship, provides student advising and is involved with the Center for Entrepreneurship. His research examines the interdependent relationship between organizations and the communities in which they reside, and he’s interested in how the different types of organizations in a community collectively affect economic outcomes, entrepreneurial activity and the founding and failure rates of other community organizations. This research draws upon work in community ecology, economic geography, social networks and entrepreneurship.

“I worked on both networked computers and occasionally radio equipment,” says Kelly ’14 (information systems). After working on computers in the Army, I decided to get into this field professionally. I have the work experience, and now I’m getting the education to back it up.”

Sophia Kelly

After her four years of military service ended in 2010, Kelly did her research and found that Mihaylo was a top business school with the added benefit of being in Orange County, where she’s from.

But the shift from the corps to the classroom took some adjustment. “Service life is extremely regimented – you do as you are told when you are told,” says Kelly. “Being back in school, you have to discipline yourself to do all the necessary steps it takes to meet your graduation goals.”

Navy Petty Officer First Class Beatriz Ramirez echoes this sentiment. “In the military, you are told what, when and how to do your job,” she says. “While in college, you have to decide which path to take and look for assistance yourself.

“But, there are some similarities as well. To be a success in business school you have to network and work as a team.”

Ramirez ’14 served in the Navy for eight years working as a travel and military pay fiscal clerk before enrolling in Mihaylo to earn a degree in accounting and information systems. “I’m familiar with the financial environment,” she says – her military experience provided a solid foundation for her future. “I want to continue my career as a financial analyst.”

Beatriz Ramirez (Third from Left) with fellow Navy personnel

Kelly also has clear career plans as a database administrator or in statistical research. “The military helped nudge me in the right direction with computers,” she says. “And now, I’ve learned a lot more about my career choice from Mihaylo.”

Veterans Support at Cal State Fullerton

Are you a veteran? If so, take advantage of the support provided by Cal State Fullerton’s Veterans Student Services and the Student Veterans Association. Coming events include:

• May 14: Veterans Discussion Lunch with pizza, noon to 1 p.m., in room UH 230
• May 15: Female Veterans Discussion Lunch with pizza, noon to 1 p.m., at Aloha Java
• May 16: Student Veterans Association Potluck, 4 to 5 p.m., in room UH 205

Matathia is director of marketing communications at Hyundai Motor America, and at a recent lecture on campus, he explored the important relationship between data and marketing.

It may sound boring doing the same thing every morning but it’s not. The data reports set the pace of his day and foreshadow how it will go. “I can either exhale or panic,” says Matathia.

His job is to ultimately take the data and focus his priorities on the things that he can affect. If he has no control of the outcome or doesn’t see himself improving it any further, he focuses on the areas where he will see the improvement in his data reports.

Enticing consumers to share their information was part of a project Matathia illustrated during his presentation. Designed to increase sales and advertising for the Hyundai Elantra, his team created an interactive platform that placed an Elantra in the customer’s virtual driveway.

They partnered with Google and produced the Elantra Driveway Decision Maker. The customer chooses the car he or she wants and enters his or her address, and then watches the new Hyundai pull up into the customer’s on-screen driveway.

Not only do customers get the chance to see how great the new car looks in their driveway, a large sum of data is actually collected from this interactive tour. “I end up with tons of data about what interests people,” Matathia says.

With this program, Matathia now knows where customers live and what they are looking for in a vehicle. For example, if the northwest region is interested in more cars of a certain color and trim, he can now allocate product based on the interest of people in a designated region.

It’s important to work in real time, Matathia adds, which requires real-time analysis and exploring new ways to reach the audience. As an example, during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout, savvy business marketers who were “on duty” and following the activities of the game in real time were able to take advantage of the unexpected moment when fans turned to social media to share the experience and make use of the time.

Despite the large amount of money and time spent to advertise during the Super Bowl, with the help of data, Matathia was able to see that shopping activity significantly increased from the Super Bowl advertisement.

Matathia also encourages students to not to be afraid to take risks when marketing themselves, because it’s an industry based on risks. “You need to have your own point of view and not be afraid to share it,” he says. “You can be wrong and that’s OK, as long you express your ideas.”

Photo Credit: Rubin Judith

Like many Mihaylo College students today, Frank Stanek ’64 (business administration) worked at Disneyland while he was a business student at Cal State Fullerton. He took on various part-time jobs, which immersed him in the business-development side of the California theme park and the Disney Company operations. This was the start of a 25-year career with what would become a leading global company.

On April 6, 2013, Stanek was awarded the Buzz Price Thea Award Recognizing a Lifetime of Distinguished Achievements by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA), which also hails him as the “best known business development executive in the themed entertainment industry.”

Stanek was one of the Disney visionaries who provided the company’s signature entertainment experience for millions of people. His leadership helped steer the global expansion of both Disney and Universal Studios.

Stanek was actively involved in all aspects of new business and project development for Disney, and he had a hand in many of the company’s landmark achievements, including the seminal Disney attractions introduced at the World’s Fair in 1964 and ’65, Orlando’s Epcot Center and Disney World Resort, Tokyo Disneyland and Euro Disney.

Having established a remarkable track record at Disney in the planning, development and implementation of some of the largest construction projects in the world, Stanek moved on to Universal Studios, where he was president of international business development for 17 years.

His extensive experience and leadership contributed to the planning of Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, the acquisition of Universal Mediterranea in Spain and the company’s expansion into China, France, Singapore and Malaysia.

Stanek was honored with CSUF’s Vision and Visionaries award in 1994, and today, he is head of Stanek Global Advisors, a consulting company, and he has served – both past and present – on many national and international boards within the industry.

In response to Stanek’s TEA award, a former Disney colleague, Marty Sklar, said, “Perhaps no one has had more impact on the two biggest players in our business – Disney and Universal – than Frank Stanek has had, especially in the growth and development of the industry in the international marketplace.”