2008 Woodie Awards
Luncheon offers lessons of leadership
By: Tim Ottusch
Issue date: 1/16/08 Section: News
Aubrey McMahan and Mark Gervasi helped 43 people excel in leadership Tuesday.
McMahan, a human resource manager, and Gervasi, a general manager, are employees of the Exel Corporation, a logistics firm. The spoke at the spring semester's first Leadership Luncheon Series in Powers Hall.
"Basically anybody's invited from campus and a lot of the activities only include students so it's a good way for networking and such for students," said Mount Pleasant junior Laura Jay, co-coordinator of the series.
McMahan and Gervasi talked about Exel as a company and how important leadership is in the business world.
"You're really not going to succeed, you're not going to be able to get a team to follow you if you don't have leadership skills that are necessary to organize and move a team forward," Gervasi said.
Exel employs more than 570,000 global associates, the second most in the world after Walmart. To stress the importance of leadership, the company offers four leadership classes.
"It's very important, in order for you to remain a supervisor/manager level we have four leadership classes you must take, it's mandatory," McMahan said.
Brad Kloha, assistant director of admissions, said he came to the lunch to learn more about customer service.
"They have a lot of things that relate to customer service and admissions is very driven toward customer service as well," Kloha said. "It's great to hear another business who's been successful, hear what they do to make them the leaders in their field just so that we can apply that to ours."
CMU's Leadership Institute has been running the Leadership Luncheon series for about six years and generally meets once a month, Jay said. The luncheons generally last about an hour.
"They provide a free lunch and they have different speakers come in, it changes every time," Jay said. "We try to average about at least one per month, sometimes more, sometimes less. Depending on who they can get to come in and speak."
Dykstra Heinze, director of the Leadership Institute, said the next luncheon is in the works.
Jay said this semester's series should be successful.
"It should be a good turnout," Jay said. "Usually there are at least 30-40 people and they do have to RSVP because they get full pretty fast. The turnout is usually very good because college students want to take advantage of the free lunch and they are very interesting speakers."
Each luncheon a different topic is presented by the speakers. Topics discussed before have been about career opportunities and on personal health.
news@cm-life.com
McMahan, a human resource manager, and Gervasi, a general manager, are employees of the Exel Corporation, a logistics firm. The spoke at the spring semester's first Leadership Luncheon Series in Powers Hall.
"Basically anybody's invited from campus and a lot of the activities only include students so it's a good way for networking and such for students," said Mount Pleasant junior Laura Jay, co-coordinator of the series.
McMahan and Gervasi talked about Exel as a company and how important leadership is in the business world.
"You're really not going to succeed, you're not going to be able to get a team to follow you if you don't have leadership skills that are necessary to organize and move a team forward," Gervasi said.
Exel employs more than 570,000 global associates, the second most in the world after Walmart. To stress the importance of leadership, the company offers four leadership classes.
"It's very important, in order for you to remain a supervisor/manager level we have four leadership classes you must take, it's mandatory," McMahan said.
Brad Kloha, assistant director of admissions, said he came to the lunch to learn more about customer service.
"They have a lot of things that relate to customer service and admissions is very driven toward customer service as well," Kloha said. "It's great to hear another business who's been successful, hear what they do to make them the leaders in their field just so that we can apply that to ours."
CMU's Leadership Institute has been running the Leadership Luncheon series for about six years and generally meets once a month, Jay said. The luncheons generally last about an hour.
"They provide a free lunch and they have different speakers come in, it changes every time," Jay said. "We try to average about at least one per month, sometimes more, sometimes less. Depending on who they can get to come in and speak."
Dykstra Heinze, director of the Leadership Institute, said the next luncheon is in the works.
Jay said this semester's series should be successful.
"It should be a good turnout," Jay said. "Usually there are at least 30-40 people and they do have to RSVP because they get full pretty fast. The turnout is usually very good because college students want to take advantage of the free lunch and they are very interesting speakers."
Each luncheon a different topic is presented by the speakers. Topics discussed before have been about career opportunities and on personal health.
news@cm-life.com
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