Founder And Former President Of A Pediatric Therapy Company

How I Got The Job

My Education: BS, Economics, University of Rhode Island MBA, Southern Methodist University

My Prior Experience: I worked at American Airlines for 15 years in marketing and customer service and eight years at SimuFlite Training International, a major aviation training services company where I eventually came to be president. I was chairman afterwards of Axis Trading Corporation, a broker dealer in Dallas, Texas and I ended my career as the president, CEO and co-owner of a pediatric therapy company in Texas.

My Job Profile

My Company: a pediatric therapy company

Job/Career Overview: As president I oversaw all activities of the organization: marketing, advertising, promotion, public relations and sales, delivering our services (operations), personnel and human relations (recruiting, health insurance and payroll administration, discipline and employee relations), finance and accounting (billing and collection, planning and budgeting, purchasing, record keeping, cash management) and management information systems (all communications and computer systems).

But my most important responsibility was to ensure that the organization recruited and retained the best people, took great care of them and identified and solved problems to make their jobs easier to accomplish. If, as president, you're successful doing this, everything else will take care of itself. Your people will be happy, customers will be happy and shareholders will be happy.

More Insights: If you're like most high school seniors and you really don't know what career to pursue, an undergraduate liberal arts degree is the best education. It will teach you how to write, speak and think. That's all you need. Then, work a couple of years followed by graduate school. If you're still unsure, an MBA degree or law degree is an asset in almost any setting. Many law graduates never actually practice law.