Full-time MBA Blog – Page 14

February 23, 2016

Differentiating When It Matters Most

Hi Everyone! As you may or may not know, one of the great things about Stern is that all the clubs are student led and student run. As an MBA1, you have the opportunity to apply to AVP positions for a wide range of clubs and positions, which is amazing, as we can not only practice our leadership and managerial skills, but also have direct access to all the club’s resources! This year, I was fortunate enough to be selected as one of the AVPs of Conference for the Graduate Marketing Association (GMA). Our annual conference was held late last year on November 6^th and was a huge success!

Since our conference is pretty early in the school year, planning actually starts earlier during the spring/summer. My amazing VPs (Hi Debbie & Aileen!) had already booked a venue, set a theme, and reached out to speakers by the time we AVPs came on board to sort out the details and kinks.

Our lovely conference brochures! (Photo Credit: Nevena Georgieva)

The conference theme this year was “Engaging Consumers: Differentiating When It Matters Most.” Our keynote speakers included the marvelous Carolyn Everson, VP of Global Marketing Solutions for Facebook, and the CEO & Co-Founder of Brooklyn Brewery, Steve Hindy. There were also panels focusing on digital branding, packaging, and 360 activation, with speakers ranging from Unilever to Google to Lancôme. Our afternoon sessions also featured a panel co-hosted by the Stern Women In Business group on campus, along with a MBA1 Mini Case event hosted by our sponsor companies.

It was definitely a lot to coordinate – we needed to secure speakers, market our event, create pamphlets…and all within a student org budget! My first assignment was to create an app for the event (go check it out! You can learn more about the conference and attendees here: https://attendify.com/app/k5m3i3) – which was definitely a new experience for me! There were times, especially closer to the conference, where I would put away my phone for half an hour only to come back with 35 new emails and 10 new action items. But in the end it was super worth it to see the conference go off without a hitch and to get positive feedback. Not to mention the preparation and event day were both excellent networking opportunities!

I had such a blast both planning and participating in this conference. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, the conference is open to public, so feel free to come by next year! Not to mention the GMA Conference is just one of many, many conferences and events held and run by students throughout the year, so there are tons of options to choose from.

February 18, 2016February 18, 2016

Block 2, I Love You

When you first start business school, you can’t necessarily comprehend the extent to which you will bond with your classmates and your blockmates in particular. It has now been five months since I first met this astonishingly diverse group of people, and I am reluctant to imagine what my life would have been like had Stern not brought us together in this one place at this one time.

Before school started, there were some self-organized gatherings. The air was warm, the days were still long, and the trees in nearby Washington Square Park were lush and green. Around the corner from Stern, 10 to 20 of us would meet up for Happy Hour and talk about what had become our pasts—where we grew up, where we last lived, what job we just quit (or still needed to quit).

I’m a born-and-raised New Yorker but was returning home from a three-year stint in Los Angeles, where I worked as a script reader, screenwriter, and director’s assistant. Many people had been living and working in the city in various occupations. Some grew up in the States, yet others were from places as far away as Taiwan and New Delhi—one had gotten off the plane just a day before, and his wife had yet to join him!

It wasn’t until LAUNCH when I met my block (Block 2!) in its entirety, all 67 of us. I was pleasantly surprised at how genuinely kind and down-to-earth everyone was (Stern definitely has the IQ+EQ thing down pat), but at that point, I still had no idea to what lengths we would go to befriend and support one another.

On an average night.

Fast forward past midterms, during which my blockmates and I took over the Starbucks Lounge even more so than we usually do (see above) to study together. Fast forward past a brutal recruiting season, during which we’d check in on each other and post silly things in the group messenger app to keep morale up. Fast forward to “Blocksgiving,” when a random bunch of us (and a few partners) came together before the weekend was over, on the eve of dozens of summer internship application deadlines, to share a homemade meal with each other.

At Stern no less.

Skip ahead to the last day of classes, when half of us celebrated by running down the street from Stern to our unofficial block watering hole and catching up with each other into the night. Then jump ahead one day, when we rallied together the next morning in a last-minute push to donate to Stern’s Toys for Tots Drive. I’m proud to say the effort was especially rewarding, for in addition to doing good, as the block with the highest participation we were awarded enough block points to clinch the Block Points Championship for the semester.

At this point I’m bragging, but how could I not? And don’t get me wrong—there are amazing people in the other five blocks too. But as I recall from Blocksgiving, sitting in a room at Stern with good company, laughing and trying not to choke on apple crumble and coconut cream pie, I thought to myself what I was thankful for, and my current situation came to mind.

I am thankful for Stern, for giving me the chance to challenge myself and to be among people who are brilliant in both heart and mind. I am thankful for my block for being ~~the best block~~ so thoughtful, supportive, fun, and hilarious, truly (I could go on about our beer receivables and sock puppies but I don’t think you’d get it, sorry!). And I am thankful for these moments, now memories, shared by the lot of us, a wonderful group that would have had little reason to ever come together had we not been given the opportunity that we have now.

And as we come back from break, we hope you had the:

February 11, 2016

Insights into the Winter Break of an MBA2

Hey everyone,

It has been a while since I last posted, but it was for good reason…I was on my MBA2 winter break! The second-year winter break during business school is one of the best things ever. Really.

At Stern, like a number of b-schools, we get all of January off. A large majority of first-year students have to utilize this time for summer internship interviewing. Most MBA2s, on the other hand, take advantage of this “free month” to do a variety of things since most of us will probably never get this much time back. What is the most popular use of the time? Traveling!

I personally decided to travel to Southeast Asia (along with probably a third of our class). I started my journey by first enrolling in one of our Doing Business In… (DBi) programs for the first two weeks of January. Our DBi programs are one (1.5 credits) or two-week (3 credits) study abroad immersion programs with partner schools that focus on teaching best practices for conducting business in a foreign country. I participated in the DBi Asia program, which was located in Singapore in partnership with the National University of Singapore. The course covered several interesting topics, including the value proposition paradigm as it relates to Asian markets, the many economical, political, and cultural roadblocks Western firms can expect to encounter if they try to expand to Indonesia, as well as group simulations that illustrated Asian negotiation customs. Outside of the classroom, our class had the opportunity to visit a number of Singaporean corporate sites, including the luxurious Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Airlines, and Yamato. We were also provided the opportunity to explore landmarks such as the Singapore Flyer and the famous Night Safari, as well as to get a taste for traditional Singaporean chili crab.

After my time in Singapore, I decided to continue my explorations to Bali, Phuket, Bangkok, Siem Reap, Myanmar, and Hanoi. It was one of the most culturally eye-opening experiences of my life, and it was fascinating to compare and contrast the different cultures throughout the region.

Those 5 weeks of combined study and fun were the ideal way for me to spend my winter break, and I am forever fortunate for the opportunity. I hope this gave you a little bit of insight into how you can take advantage of the ample personal time between semesters in your second year of study! As I’m back on campus now, I promise not to take so long to write another post!

Cheers,

Jon

February 8, 2016

On Being Different

During perhaps the most insightful of his lectures this semester, Professor Scott Galloway highlighted the importance of finding the characteristics that make us unique, and using them to our advantage.

Rephrasing his words, once we have found the reasons that differentiate us, we must cultivate them, find our “niche” and build our own brand. Now that my first semester of graduate school is coming to an end, I believe I have found one of Stern’s main sources of uniqueness.

Having grown up in a foreign country, I spent my younger years trying to do exactly the opposite of what the Professor suggested. I anguished over adjusting to norms and customs different from mine, in an effort to be just like everyone else around me. But the more I tried to blend in, the more I stood out.

I eventually gave up and decided to embrace the traits that made me different, even though my behavior, my beliefs and even my appearance made me an easy target for bullying, to which I grew accustomed.

But I never expected to find a place where I felt that I belonged, without sacrificing my uniqueness. However from the first time I visited Stern, I noticed the positive and welcoming attitude of the entire community towards diversity.

The students I had the opportunity to meet on that first occasion made me realize that at NYU, things such as coming from diverse backgrounds or having a different ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, are not seen as disadvantages. Rather they are welcomed and embraced.

My experiences here have reinforced that notion. Getting to know the amazingly talented people that make up my class and attending an array of extracurricular activities has shown me that one of Stern’s strongest traits is this openness to diversity and desire for inclusion.

The academics and student life at Stern are not just about learning to see the world from different perspectives, but about enriching everyone’s overall MBA experience.

First day of LAUNCH 2015.
From left: Candace Imani Munroe and Victoria Eloise Zunhiga.

February 1, 2016February 1, 2016

Just a semester in, and already seeing the world through a new lens…

My alarm clock jolted me awake at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, December 19^th. Having completed the last exam of my first semester at Stern just a day earlier, I was feeling relieved to have a relaxing, if temporary, respite from the academic demands of business school. With tickets in hand to see a morning showing of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” I was ready to slip out of MBA mode and into the “home-for-the-holidays” state of mind.

A few minutes later, my friend Sam, who I was visiting up in Boston, poked his head into my room. “Hey man,” he said, “I’m heading to the gym before the movie – there’s some Special K cereal in the cupboard and K-Cups for the Keurig if you want anything – oh, and feel free to eat in the living room, Apple TV’s all hooked up.” He started to walk out the door then added, “also, I figure we can grab some Chipotle after Star Wars if you want.”

As Sam shut the door behind him, I sat there, surprised at the thoughts that came rushing into my head. While on the surface, our morning exchange might have seemed rather innocuous, for me, it was the first time I truly realized just how much Stern has changed my perceptions of the world. In the time it took Sam to utter a few quick sentences referencing everyday items and brands, my mind was making linkages back to all I had learned and experienced in one short semester.

Rather than just thinking about which flavor K-Cup I wanted to make, I was again pondering Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ acquisition of Keurig, as I had been just a few days earlier in Strategy. Mention of Special K cereal took be back to another case study on big companies like Kellogg contracting out excess production capacity to make store-brand cereal products for retail stores. And of course Apple, a company that, as Professor Scott Galloway eloquently puts it, has “moved down the torso” from the consumer’s head, to the heart, and beyond, to maximize margins while transforming from a tech company into a luxury brand.

I always believed that undergrad was where you “learned how to think,” and grad school was where you gained a specific set of technical skills. But my early morning exchange with Sam was revealing that at Stern, your way of thinking and perceiving evolves as well, and there is no such thing as “slipping out of MBA mode.” Where I once saw brands, products, and prices as a consumer, I was now seeing the fruition of behind the scenes business processes – strategic decisions, supply and demand analyses, complex pricing models, and the like – as an MBA.

Of course, as a result of my first semester, I can comfortably put together a CFFO, build a game theory decision tree, and analyze a regression. But more importantly, I can now see the world in a whole new light, and think in a way that would have never been possible without my Stern experience.

December 2, 2015December 2, 2015

Explore. Expand. Experiment.

These three words were the theme for LAUNCH, Stern’s one-week orientation program for new full-time MBA students that happens every August. I was drawn to it, in part because I have been fond of alliterative phrases since middle school, but also because of what they represent. LAUNCH marked the beginning of a two-year period where I had permission to do all three of these. When else in life would I have the time, resources, and lack of constraints to explore, expand, and experiment like this?

Before Stern, I worked in the education sector, both at a university and a nonprofit. I enjoyed working with other educators, building youth programs, and contributing to teenagers’ personal development. But, like many of you, I knew that I wanted to build new skill sets that would take me even further in my career. I had spent a number of years watching other young people improve themselves through school, so returning to earn an MBA seemed like a great idea.

Stern’s message of educating for business and society resonated deeply with me, and I’m positive I found the right fit. Since coming to Stern, I have:

• Explored. Having built my perspective on social impact within the education sector, I was excited to learn more about other social sector careers. Through Stern’s Social Enterprise Association, I have learned from alumni and industry experts about impact investing, corporate social responsibility, nonprofit consulting, and many other areas I hadn’t previously explored. In just a few weeks, I will have the chance to explore doing business in another part of the globe as I embark on my first DBi to Singapore (stay tuned for more on that). I can’t wait!

• Expanded. We’ve all heard about the importance of networking to advance our careers. I knew business school might fast track this process, but I could not have anticipated just how my network would grow at Stern. I entered thinking I would gravitate towards peers with similar backgrounds. It only took a few weeks to form strong and genuine connections with peers pursuing finance, marketing, strategy, luxury retail, entrepreneurship, entertainment, and every other industry under the sun. Stern has expanded both the depth and breadth of my lifelong network.

• Experimented. With a two-year time out from the working world, I knew this was the perfect time to try new things. At Stern, I have tried out consulting through experiential learning courses like Strategy with a Social Purpose and Stern’s Board Fellows Program. I have performed an original song in front of audience of my peers and attended my first fashion show. I visited companies like Jet Blue and the Metropolitan Opera House, and spent a day interviewing waffle truck operators, as I learned operations in the real world through Ops in NYC.

Stern has been transformative for me, and I hope these snapshots have given you a sense of my time here thus far. With just six months until graduation, I look forward to sharing more details about the rest of my time exploring, expanding, and experimenting while I still can.

Until next time,
Jamie

November 23, 2015April 21, 2016

Allow Me to Introduce … Part 3

Hey readers! Have you heard of CORE Leader? Did you know a current Sternie amongst us is the CEO and founder of this company?

62% of the Stern student body come to school to work in finance, management consulting, or marketing (official Stern statistics here). The remaining 38% pursue non-traditional industries such as non-profit, entertainment, or technology. But there are the special and very talented few that become entrepreneurs during their time at Stern. I am lucky and honored to not only know one of them, but also to call him a dear friend: Chris Shaw.

Chris is a current full-time MBA2 and a US Army veteran. During his time in the Army, he was stationed with the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina (just like me!) and is now CEO and founder of his own company.

Evelyn: Hi Chris! Thanks for sharing your story. Can you tell the readers a little about yourself and what you did before Stern?
Chris: I am from Old Chatham, NY, a small town near Albany and went to Cornell University for undergrad. Before Stern, I flew Kiowa Warrior Armed Reconnaissance helicopters in the US Army for eight years. I deployed to Afghanistan twice, where I mostly flew at night, staring into two round, green TV screens one inch from my eyes (AKA night vision) for about 1,000 hours of my life.

E: Wow! You’ve had an amazing military career. When did you realize you had the “entrepreneur bug”?
C: I actually wanted to start my own company before even applying to Stern. In fact, I didn’t know exactly what my business would be, but I knew that the skills from an MBA degree would help me reach that goal.

E: Can you tell the readers a little about your company, CORE Leader?
C: CORE Leader is a team building business. However, unlike most businesses in this category, we do not do “trust falls” or scavenger hunts. Instead, we teach a battle-tested form of dynamic problem solving and reinforce it with a mobile, military-style challenge course. Think “Tough Mudder” meets “Escape the Room”.

E: What are some of your favorite parts about being a CEO, founder, and entrepreneur?
C: I like that I can set my own priorities and focus entirely on what is important to me. I enjoy not only coming up with features of the brand and the product experience, but also testing out new ideas without seeking approval. Finally, I like the feeling of making a sale and knowing that I just made my business more valuable and financially stable.

E: I can only imagine how tough an entrepreneur’s journey is at the beginning. How has Stern supported you as an entrepreneur?
C: Stern has been instrumental to CORE’s success. Besides the knowledge I’ve gained through their classes, the Berkeley Center awarded me a $10,000 fellowship grant to support my work this summer. I couldn’t have asked for better support from the school.

E: What classes at Stern best prepared you for CORE Leader success?
C: I used lessons from every class I took at Stern while starting CORE. A few examples really stand out though. A combination of Accounting and Corporate Finance allowed me to put numbers to the business plan. Brand Strategy helped me understand my personal brand and how I could turn it into a highly differentiated business. Social Problem Based Entrepreneurship walked me through the development of a business plan, which resulted in a solid foundation for the getting the company off the ground.

E: If you had advice for an entrepreneur pursuing an MBA, what would you tell them?
C: Getting an MBA will definitely make you a better entrepreneur, no matter how deep your prior subject matter expertise in your venture’s industry. Every class you take will give you tools to make smarter business decisions as a founder.

E: Okay, time for my favorite part. Evelyn’s Quickfire Attack: KMC elevator or stairs?
C: Oh man. I’m the worst and I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but… sometimes I take the elevator to the 2nd floor!

E: If you want to catch up with a friend: Sosnoff or 4th Floor Starbucks Lounge? (if neither – list where)
C: I like to hang out in the lobby after classes to catch up with people.

E: Finally, what does being an entrepreneur mean to you?
C: Taking on all the risk and reaping the potential reward (or enduring the failure) of a new business. It is a hard path. It can be uncertain and lonely. If it is your calling – if, as Prof. Galloway says “you feel like you just have to do it” in spite of the inevitably bleak risk-adjusted reward possibility – then commit to it and go at it, full force. If you hesitate at all, you will find it very hard to do what it takes to really succeed.

Thanks for sharing your journey with us, Chris! Learn more about CORE Leader here.

November 19, 2015November 20, 2015

Mid-Semester Check in…

It suddenly hit me that it is almost the end of the semester! I am spending the bulk of my time at Columbia University, where I took advantage of one of the different experiential programs that Stern offers. I am taking a course on the public education sector in the US from K-12; it is divided into a seminar and a consulting project. One of the interesting parts is that it takes a multidisciplinary approach where I am studying with other MBAs, MPAs, Law, and Education students from different schools. It has been fascinating to see the different perspectives that we bring to the table, and to realize once again that this reflects the complexity of the “working world’’. The course focuses on the changes that are needed in public education, and I have learned a lot about organizational change and organizational design – concepts that can be transferred to any other company that I work for once I graduate.

Up on the hill – mornings on the Columbia U. campus

In other news, a couple of weeks ago I had to choose my spring courses and it was one of those moments where I realized that this was it! There is so much that I still have to learn, and so little time to do it. This is my 2^nd business degree, but I am only starting to scratch the surface. Being at Stern, working on different projects, interning, studying with my peers has been such an intellectually stimulating challenge. It also hit me that this is the last time I get to see my friends who are studying abroad next semester, and that now is the time to really make time for them. I am so excited to graduate, to go out into the world and to chart a path for myself. Yet, I would like to stay in this bubble a little longer. In Kinyarwanda they say: “akaryoshe ntigahora mwitama” – it literally translates into “the sweet doesn’t remain in your cheek” meaning that you cannot hold onto great times forever. I now understand the mixed emotions that the class of 2015 felt last fall.

To end on a happier note though, as I had mentioned in a previous post last year, I will be taking full advantage of the January break. I am going on a DBI in Israel, and after that I am planning on visiting a couple of countries with some of my closest friends. I cannot wait!

Until next time,

Michaella

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015

Hello, My Name is…

Hey everyone,

My name is Jon, and I am a second-year full-time MBA student here at NYU Stern, and I am excited to begin blogging for you! I look forward to sharing my experiences as you continue to determine which MBA journey you want to pursue, as well as continually giving you insight into what it’s like to be Sternie.

First, a brief introduction! I am originally from Jamaica, but was raised in Royal Palm Beach, Florida. I decided to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Go Heels!), where I studied marketing. After graduating from UNC, I worked at a leading consumer packaged goods company for five years in their sales division as part of a management rotational program. Although I gained invaluable experience over those years, I knew my true passion was to pursue the function I studied in college. I also knew that I wanted to pair this functional interest with my lifelong passion for sports – I grew up as a competitive soccer player, and am genuinely intrigued with the business of sports.

So this brought me to Stern! Why? For a couple of reasons:

I mainly targeted b-schools that had programs which touched the sports & entertainment fields, and NYU Stern has one of the leading Entertainment MBA programs in the country. Seeing as how sports typically falls into the “entertainment bucket”, I believed this would be a great opportunity for me to take advantage of a curriculum that was tailored to my interests.
I knew that in order to break into sports, I also had to be in a city that afforded me ample networking opportunities. New York City is the central hub for this industry (as for many other industries), and attending an MBA program in such a location would open many doors for me. I have already had the chance to set up coffee chats with industry professionals at major sports leagues (at their World HQ), as well as conduct a student consulting project for Whistle Sports Network. Opportunities like these would not be possible at other leading business schools, simply because of their locations.
I also wanted to attend a school where I saw myself fitting into the culture. I targeted schools with small to medium class sizes, and atmospheres that fostered collaboration rather than intense competitiveness. I wanted to immerse myself in a community where students were genuinely interested in learning about their classmates and their life stories, as opposed to only what careers they’re seeking. I visited Stern and interacted with alumni a number of times before applying, and each time this sort of culture transcended through all touch points.

Now I am in my second year, with only one more semester left to go….noooo!!!! That said, I am in a very fortunate position in that I have already accepted a full-time offer to begin working for PepsiCo as an Associate Marketing Manager. I interned with PepsiCo last summer as a MBA Marketing Intern on the Gatorade brand. It was an amazing opportunity to work at the intersection of brand and sport – thus addressing exactly why I came back to pursue an MBA in the first place. So far, things are falling into place perfectly.

I can’t wait to continue sharing my experiences with you as I wrap up my “senior year”! Until my next post, I hope everyone enjoys the Thanksgiving holiday next week!

Signing off,

Jon

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015

Allow Me to Introduce … Part 2

In honor of Veterans Day this November, I am proud to announce that the Military Veterans Club at Stern will be holding the first ever “NYU Stern Veterans Week” this year. We will have a variety of events for the Stern community such as an MBA veterans Q&A panel where Sternies can ask us about our military experiences, a bootcamp workout session, and a guest speaker event featuring a retired two-star general officer.

It was an easy decision that my second coffee chat in this blog should be with a fellow MBA veteran here at Stern. To give a fresh perspective to the Stern experience, I sat down with Todd Gardner from Lexington, North Carolina, US Army veteran, and full-time MBA1 student. Todd is currently recruiting for finance after spending the past seven years with the 3rd Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina (Airborne!).

Evelyn: Hi Todd! Can you tell the readers how you and I first met?
Todd: We initially met at Stern’s Veterans Summit Day for prospective students in 2014. It was a fantastic event!

E: As military vets, our backgrounds are usually quite different than some of our classmates’. What did you do before Stern?
T: Prior to coming to Stern, I was working in the Army as a Special Forces Engineer, also known as a Green Beret. Some highlights of my job were going on three deployments to Afghanistan, becoming the team expert on everything related to explosives, working with some of the most talented and driven individuals I’ve ever met, and frequently jumping out of airplanes and helicopters. Okay, I’m lying about that last one – I always mildly hated it. But other than that, it was truly a dream job.

E: Like many of the blog readers, you were probably considering a few different MBA programs when applying. When did you realize that Stern was the right choice for you?
T: I first visited Stern through the previously mentioned Veteran Summit Day, “A Day in the Life” at Stern organized by the current MBA veterans. The more that I interacted with everyone in the Stern community, the more I realized that Stern really believed in admitting well-rounded students. Stern checked all of the boxes for things I really valued in a business school experience.

E: I know you’re only into your first semester, but what is your favorite class at Stern so far?
T: Foundations of Finance, with Professor Silber, has been my most enjoyable (and probably toughest) class so far. It’s challenging, but interesting, and I think that he’s an outstanding and extremely engaging professor.

E: Now on to the really important questions … Where is your favorite place to grab lunch around Stern?
T: Coming from the South, I was extremely hesitant to move to NYC because of the depressing lack of Chick-fil-A’s in the city. As it turns out, the only one in the entire city is only two blocks away. So yeah, I guess that’s my favorite. (Editor’s note: As of Oct 3, the Chick-fil-A flagship in NYC opened in Midtown. See you in line, Todd!)

E: Complete this sentence “When I have 30 minutes free on campus I like to …”
T: You can usually find me in the school lobby, where it’s nice to run into friends and catch up for a bit between classes.

E: Quick fire question time! KMC elevator or stairs?
T: Stairs, but my cutoff is the 5^th floor. If I’m going to the 6^th floor or higher, I’m definitely riding the elevator.

E: If you want to catch up with a friend: Sosnoff or 4th Floor Starbucks Lounge? (if neither – list where)
T: Neither. Other people like grabbing coffee, I prefer to grab a beer. Luckily there are a few solid watering holes around Stern that have been great to catch up with friends as well as get some studying done.

E: With Veterans Day coming up, what does being a veteran at Stern mean to you?
T: It means two things to me. First, it’s being a part of a very tight-knit community that is extremely supportive and very diverse. The Stern veterans have such varied background and are some of the most well-rounded people I’ve met. It’s an honor to be a part of the Stern vets community. Second, many of my classmates had never personally known any military veterans, so it has been fun getting to share my military stories and experiences with them.

Thanks for sharing your story, Todd! And Happy Veterans Day, everyone!