How Did You Get Your Start?

I came to UVA doing systems engineering, truthfully, because I was good at math and people told me I should do it. I had no idea how to turn it into a career.

I interviewed for tech consulting jobs, again, because people said, this is what you should do. I landed at the old Coopers & Libran, which is now PWC, doing database information systems for government clients right out of Roslyn, Virginia.

As I started that journey, I asked myself what I wanted out of my career, and I wasn't certain it was consulting. 

I thought about a job that I’d never want to retire from, rather than the one that may get me to retirement as quickly as possible. Two of my mentors, Yacov Haimes in the Engineering School and Ernest Mead, a music professor who taught the Lawn Seminar, inspired me to go back to school and get my PhD.

To this day, I don’t live it down, but I didn’t tell my wife at the time I applied for the PhD program. I did it on a whim, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I only applied to MIT and happened to get in.

So I went to Boston, studying engineering systems with a focus on technology management and policy. I became interested in business, and ended up getting a job at the Stern School at NYU after I graduated.

I spent 3 years there, then moved to Duke as a faculty member for 6 years, and finally had an opportunity to come back home to UVA.

I didn’t get the job at UVA because I was looking for one. It was pretty random. I had been invited to give a talk at UVA, and when I was there, they mentioned the opportunity. I was well settled at Duke, tenured even, but I always dreamed of coming back to UVA.

I joke that I wandered in the darkness for 15 years, going to Boston, New York, and North Carolina to find my way back to Charlottesville. 

I ran the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Darden for my first 8 years. I served as, now, President Beardsley's, but at that time, Dean Beardsley's Chief Strategy Officer at Darden.

The last two years, I was asked by the President and Provost to lead UVA Innovates work, and for the last four weeks, I was asked to be the Interim Dean at Darden.

It's been quite the journey, and I have no idea what’s to come up next.