by Neely Borger | May 23, 2014 | Academics, Accounting, College Decisions, Current Students, Placement stories
This last spring semester senior accounting major, Kyndal Coleman, had the opportunity to intern with Ernst & Young in her hometown of San Antonio. Kyndal worked in four different audit departments, including telecommunications, construction, energy, and consumer products. She also spent two weeks working in the Tulsa office of EY, gaining experience on a project with an energy company there. While interning, Kyndal learned how to work with a smaller team, challenging herself to learn quickly and perform well under pressure. She highly values the education she received at COBA, believing that COBA helped her to pay attention to details and apply the skills she was learning in the classroom. After interning with the company, Ernst & Young gave Kyndal a job offer. Kyndal plans to finish her Master’s Degree in Accounting and become CPA certified in the summer of 2015. Kyndal is one of many accounting students who represent COBA so well in the marketplace. Way to go Kyndal!
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“The keys to success when interning: humility, patience, and a positive attitude when you are in a new environment,” says Kyndal Coleman, a senior accounting major from San Antonio.
by Neely Borger | May 21, 2014 | Careers In..., Current Students, Placement stories
Evan Webb, a Management major from Houston, recently accepted a job offer from PrimeSource. PrimeSource specializes in building products, leading the industry in providing exceptional product quality at the most competitive prices. Evan admires what the company stands for, treating their customers and employees with integrity and respect. Evan will start in a “Leader-in-Training” program for four months before taking a full-time position. Evan encourages students to take advantage of CareerLink, the ACU Career Center, and the COBA Career Connections office when looking for jobs and internships. COBA’s Career Connections is one of a kind, bridging the gap between students and employers and finding ways for students to get plugged into the marketplace.
“COBA has prepared me by giving me real world opportunities to interact with actual business men and women, allowing me to see how I can be a successful Christian influence in the marketplace.”
by Neely Borger | Apr 25, 2014 | Current Students, Placement stories
Kimray is one of the fastest growing private companies in the world and is a world-class manufacturer of control equipment used extensively in oil and gas production in North America and around the globe. They are a privately owned family company with more than 800 employees and occupying over 360,000 square feet in their campus facility. This was the third year in a row for Kimray to make the Inc. 500 List, a list of America’s fastest growing companies. In 2013, they had over $240,000,000 in sales, making their way to the Top of the 100 Manufacturing Companies list. For over 65 years, Kimray has been the leader in upstream oil and gas controls under ANSI standards. Kimray received the 2013 Hire Power Award, which recognizes private companies that are leading the way in creating America jobs, making Kimray the leading job creator.
Kimray Inc. was founded in 1948 by innovative leader Garman O. Kimmel. The company takes pride in putting the customer first and honoring the Lord in everything they do by creating incomparable value in their relationships with customers and employees. Their vision is to make a difference in the lives they serve, putting their faith in action by trusting God with their future and serving those wholeheartedly in every aspect of the company.
Emily Conrad, a senior Management major, had the opportunity to intern with Kimray this past summer. She worked in various areas of the company, including the distribution of weekly reports, updating PO pricing, delivery date, and supplier information, as well as providing customer service within the supply chain. Emily described her internship as “wonderful and enriching, learning valuable knowledge about supply chain management in a completely Christ-centered culture.” Kimray truly is an exceptional company, prioritizing the family, employees, and customers first and going the extra mile to humbly serve the marketplace. Having experience her own internship, Emily encourages students to seek out internship opportunities through personal relationships, utilizing this connection tool to land an internship and potentially a job. After her internship, Emily committed to a full time position working in the Operations Management department with Kimray after she graduates in May.
“COBA has taught me the fundamentals of the various aspects of business,
but more importantly to be a Christian in the workplace,” says Emily Conrad, a senior Management major from Oklahoma City.
by Neely Borger | Feb 28, 2014 | Faith Infusion, Placement stories, School of Information Technology and Computing
Imagine having a set of social listening tools that can measure exactly how effective your brand’s sharable content is. Well it is time to stop daydreaming and get social! In the fall of 2012, six founding members, including former ACU, SITC, and COBA graduates Brad Neathery (2011), Clay Selby (2011), and Braxton Huggins (2010), teamed up and created SocialRest, a set of specific tools designed to measure social shareability, engagement, and conversions made from a brand’s website content across social platforms. SocialRest measures how social users engage with a brand because of user-shared content from their website. SocialRest then follows that social user if they visit that brand’s website, listening to how they engage with content on the site and measuring conversion rates on the brand’s website.
In the fall of 2012, founder of SocialRest, Clay Selby who majored in IT in the School of Information Technology and Computing, pitched the idea at a conference in San Antonio called Three Day Startup. After the event, Clay and co-founder, Brandon Ashton, started developing the idea. After a long process of building, measuring, and learning, SocialRest became a reality, with potential to be one of the top start-ups of 2014. This set of social tools features social analytics, simple integration, impression tracking, customer behavior interest, and ROI tracking. SocialRest can also determine whether the content written on a regular basis is successful. News sites, brand-building blogs, and businesses that rely heavily on their content creators can benefit greatly with these measuring tools. SocialRest can help businesses observe, visualize, and adapt to customer responses on their site, making the process of seeing user engagement and conversion highly efficient.
The SocialRest team expects the site to become the premier listening tool for B2C (business to consumer) brands with shareable content on their website or blog. SocialRest has recently been ranked by ClubLab (a London philanthropic agency) as one of the 12 start-ups to watch in 2014, alongside high-caliber brands like Nest (acquired by Google), Topsy (acquired by Apple), and other legendary start-ups. In the month of February, SocialRest increased Twitter followers by 1200% and received over 20,000 social mentions. This company is definitely one to watch, with mentions from ClubLab’s “Top Start-ups to Watch in 2014” and Chelsea Krost’s “2014 The Year of the Millennial”.
Brad Neathery, an ACU and COBA graduate who majored in marketing, credits their success to a number of factors, including the positive mentoring influences and constant engagement with potential users of the tools. Brad also stressed how much the Lord has aided in the process, working in miraculous ways to bring glory to His kingdom. “Christ calls us to serve his people in everything that we do, and philanthropy is nothing more than an act of service. SocialRest is made up of team members that are constantly stumbling toward the cross together, and our foundation is built upon accountability in business and in life,” says Brad. SocialRest exemplifies the values COBA instills in students, preparing them to go into the world with a missional mindset and determination to bring glory to Christ and his kingdom through all aspects of business and in life. SocialRest is looking for interns for the summer of 2014. If any students are interested in the internship, they can contact COBA’s career development team, Tim Johnston or Samantha Matta.
“COBA craft’s the vision of its students to understand the world for what it is, and to then take their own approach on how to achieve their goals. There is an underlying belief that life should be seen as an opportunity, challenges seen as the first step to growth, and success to be seen as a humble awareness of how magnificent our creator is,” says Brad Neathery, former ACU and COBA graduate.
by Neely Borger | Nov 19, 2013 | Careers In..., Current Students, Placement stories
Allie Rostron, a senior marketing major from Llano, had the opportunity to intern with Dell last summer in Austin. She worked as an undergrad senior analyst within the finance department but mainly worked on projects heavily rooted in marketing and communications. One of her projects included working with people from around the globe, including Ireland, Malaysia, China, and Brazil. The aim of the project was to completely revamp all of the recruiting for the CFO’s development programs, ranging from the Finance Internship Program, the Finance and Accounting Development Programs, and the Finance Rotation Program. She also worked with a team to produce a video that would be cued by Michael Dell at his global All Hands on Deck Meeting. This project included interviewing 40 plus employees asking questions regarding Dell’s future, Dell’s innovation, and how going private would affect Dell’s interaction with customers. Allie also worked with Dell’s internal blog, One Dell Way. She performed research on Big Data, Big Analytics, the evolving workforce, and virtual desktop infrastructure.
Allie landed the internship by researching and emailing contacts in the professional marketplace. She asked for advice and feedback about her resume and the interviewing process and recommendations regarding fields and companies to look for. Her resume was forwarded to various employees within Dell and eventually to the hiring team. She advises students seeking internships to start early! If students are wanting to work in a larger company, she suggests that they start doing research now and contacting people to gain knowledge through the entire process. Secondly, she highly believes in the power of networking and that by using contacts made through networking, students are using a tool that is at everyone’s disposal.
Allie will begin working for Dell after she graduates in May. Allie is a great example of someone who used the power of networking and seeking advice from other professionals to land an incredible internship opportunity. If you are searching for an internship or job, schedule an appointment with Samantha Matta in the COBA Connections office. Congratulations Allie and good luck with your new position at Dell!
“Never underestimate the power of networking. Networking is not working the system but is utilizing a tool that is open to your disposal. You never know what can come from emailing someone and asking them advice.”
by Amanda Pittman | Dec 9, 2011 | College Decisions, Current Students, Placement stories
Jenny Dodd graduated from ACU, with honors, with a degree in Communications and a minor in Business. Shortly after she graduated from ACU, she began an MBA program at the University of South Carolina. While a student at ACU she participated in both of COBA’s study abroad programs – the Global Apprentice program in Oxford, a summer in Leipzig, Germany, Leadership Summit in Colorado, and was a student ambassador for COBA.
1) Tell us about your program at USC. What type of masters degree are you working on?
Currently I am working on an International MBA at the University of South Carolina, Moore School of Business. It’s a fairly unique program in that we compound a year’s worth of core MBA classes into a 6-month MBA bootcamp, and then have the opportunity to spend our second semester learning a new language as well as the opportunity to learn business abroad. After a summer-long internship in a different country, we return to school for our specialized courses, or we have the option to study abroad for the final year.
2) How did you decide to go to grad school?
Well, some kids dream of become a rockstar, others dream of traveling the world on a sailboat. I dreamed of spending countless hours in the library. Well ok, maybe it wasn’t exactly like that, but I have always enjoyed school and have known from a young age that college isn’t enough. I didn’t however, know what I would go on to study until my junior year of college. After an incredible COBA study abroad experience doing a consulting project in Oxford, England, I realized that this was how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Most MBA programs do not accept recent grads; however, in college I always held several internships and I graduated 6 months earlier so that I could get a little more experience. I was one of the youngest accepted to this program, and decided I was ready.
3) Part of your program requires an international internship. Where was your internship and what did you do?
In the IMBA program, you are required to have an internship during the summer after your first year. As I began heading into this search I looked both in the USA and abroad. After a search, I found an internship with Michelin Manufacturing at their worldwide headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand, France. I worked in their Purchasing Department in a marketing communications position for a 6-month period.
4) How do you feel ACU best prepared you for graduate school? The international internship?
One of the greatest benefits of being at ACU is smaller class sizes than many larger business schools and more importantly, a staff of genuinely caring professors. The faculty at ACU care and respect the potential of their students, and because of that, they invest in students. I had many professors, who took the time to give me projects that catered to my goals, or teach faster in classes where students progressed faster. I not only learned about business, but was nurtured as a future business person on an intellectual and emotional basis.
With COBA I did two study abroad experiences where we did a real hands-on project with a company in a different culture. This alone was incredibly formative in preparing me to do an international internship. Also, with such a community atmosphere at ACU you get the opportunity to interact with all different types of people. These people skills and flexibility are absolutely essential in any internship, particularly an international one.
5) What do you miss most about ACU? What do you enjoy about your new school?
I miss that ACU community that I grew to love. ACU is unlike any place in the world, and I hope it will always remain a place of openness and community. I made friendships with students and professors alike, and there was always a level of support. It is this support that has allowed me to be successful in my graduate school program.
My new school is part of the SEC, so that means football football football! The unique thing about my program is that we get to do the big-school thing, but get to be in a small program (80-90 students/year). During our first semester, we have all of our class together.The beautiful campus dates back to the civil war and is set in the heart of the capital city here. Most of all, I’ve met alumni and students alike, who are located throughout the world!
6) What are your plans after you complete the program in May?
I have several offers I am considering for after graduation, but haven’t decided yet. Sometimes It’s hard to imagine because at this moment, I have the world in front of me. It’s an eye-opening experience for a girl from Abilene Texas!
7) What advice do you have for current business students at ACU?
One of the most important things you can do for yourself, is set a goal, small or large, and once you have that goal in mind, run with everything you have towards it.
Never miss an opportunity to be involved! ACU offers an experiences like none other. You can travel, study, work and play with people like yourself. Build friendships. Love on some people around you, and let them love on you, because when you get into the real world, you’ll find that it’s those people that you took time to invest in, that’ll be your rocks. Most of all, have a spiritual focus. My brother, when he was starting out in the business world, told me that it was his passion, to share love and Jesus while doing business. He now owns his own successful business, has a wonderful family, and has changed some lives along the way. He was my role model, and set a great example for how to be a successful person, not just good at one thing or another. This is your opportunity to choose the type of person you want to be when you grow up. Don’t waste it.
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