TAG! I’m it.

My friend Matt Haverkamp tagged me so it’s my turn to reveal 5 interesting, not so well-known facts about myself.

1. Appeared on The Pauly Shore Show: Growing up in the The OC, I wasn’t all that far from Los Angeles. In high school, a classmate had a contact at Mtv who was looking to cast some shows. One was a show on teen dating in which a group of us contributed our thoughts on dating. None of my comments made the air, but they came back looking for a few kids to follow Pauly Shore around for his Halloween Special. Long story short we hung out with the guy, tried on a ton of Halloween Costumes and watch him flirt with Elvira. Overall, a very good time.

2. I’m a huge Steelers fan: Despite growing up in Southern California, I became a huge Pittsburgh Steelers at the age of 5. My first memory of football is watching the Steelers beat the Rams 31-19 with my dad in Super Bowl XIV. Already a fan of their intimidating defense and cool colors (I was 5!), I was hooked after watching that game.

3. I received my MBA from MIT: I always wanted to get my MBA but attending a school like MIT didn’t seem to match my personality. Of course, I had the pocket protector, socially awkward, Revenge of the Nerds impression in my mind.

However, after being accepted and visiting the school’s AdMIT Weekend (an event all school’s put on to give prospective students a feel for the school) and seeing how down to earth, friendly, not to mention extremely smart the students were, I was hooked. Two years later, I had my MBA and couldn’t be happier with the decision. More important than the degree were the experiences (see Ghana below) and the friends that I made.

4. Working with Entrepreneurs in Ghana: By far, the most exciting trip I’ve ever take was a trip to Tamale, Ghana. Working with 3 other classmates from MIT, I assisted a small team of Ghanaian entrepreneurs to market and sell water purification devices. These devices, no where near the simplicty or effectiveness of our Brita systems, are crucial for the prevention of disease in this country.

Selling such things might not normally present an overwhelming challenge, but for people who cannot easily afford the twenty dollar systems, this was not an easy task. Limited to three weeks, our team worked with the entrepreneurs to establish sales targets, develop their budget and fine-tune their marketing presentation. On one occasion, we spent an entire day in the local marketplace, doing (truly) grass roots marketing.

Having never been to Africa, the people could not have been friendlier. Without sounding trite, the experience was a truly life changing event and one that I’m frequently reminded of when reading, seeing and hearing about recent events in Africa.

5. Love to Quote Movies I love movies. Not just in the everyday sense of watching a movie in the theater. With certain movies, I’ll watch them over and over and over again. Not only does this provide great entertainment value, it cements the dialogue in my head for “quoting contests” with my friends Dave and Brad. Wall Street, Caddyshack, and Boomerang are some of my favorites.

“Smile Caroline there’s justice in the world.”

Tags: Pauly Shore, The OC, Mtv, high school, Pittsburgh, Steelers, Super Bowl, MBA, MIT, Ghana, Tamale, Wall Street, Caddyshack, Boomerang, movies

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my free RSS feed!

Share This