When 2007 Marriott School alumnus Cyle Adair was deployed to Iraq in January 2009, he didn't think he would be using his business degree. As a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, he thought of leading soldiers in firing mortars, conducting mounted and dismounted patrols, and training Iraqi forces. But none of those tasks proved to be his toughest job.

"Everyone thinks of Iraq as just a lethal battle, shooting guns at each other, but the most difficult part of the war in Iraq is the nonlethal part," Adair says. "You'll never be able to kill an insurgency with guns. We are trying to use influences other than weapons to effect change."

Enter Adair's business savvy. By implementing a micro-grant loan system, he provided small grants of up to $2,500 to help Iraqis start or improve small businesses. Using his entrepreneurship knowledge, he has also provided support to business owners.

"I've helped them by working on goals and business plans to help them qualify for these grants," Adair says. "It has been hard work with lots of meetings and working in the marketplace itself to see where and how these grants can help the economy. I know if the money is placed in the right areas with specific functions, the marketplace can flourish and improve the economy."

By combating poverty and the poor economic conditions of the average Iraqi, Adair is striking hard at insurgent groups. Those groups use ordinary citizens to plant roadside bombs and other explosives, offering money for their services. Most citizens don't belong to the insurgency, but the money can go a long way toward feeding their families. "By building a strong economy here, it will greatly influence the success of our efforts in this war," Adair says.

His work with the micro-grant system was such a success in his area that his squadron commander appointed him to coordinate the program through a larger area of operation.

"The squadron commander inquired about my background, and I mentioned that I graduated from the BYU business school and had taken a lot of classes in entrepreneurship and finance," Adair says. "He said he needed the skill set that I had and promoted me, saying I'd have the opportunity to affect a larger area with this new position."

Thanks to his Marriott School education and unique skills, Adair has been able to do more good for the Iraqi people than a typical soldier might.

"I am appreciative of the education I received from the Marriott School," Adair says. "It has given me a greater opportunity to serve and make a difference. It is what we as soldiers sacrifice to do every day."




It's difficult to forge friendships with employees of a rival company in the business world. So what happens when your rival's employee also happens to be your sister?

Such is the case for Jamila and Denise Cutliff. Jamila, an MBA graduate from 2005 who now works for PepsiCo, is the regional finance manager for the $750 million business. Her sister, Denise, who graduated in 2006, works as a human resource manager for competitor General Mills. But that doesn't seem to threaten their bond.

"We are both very competitive, especially working for rival competitors in the grocery stores," says Jamila. "But we are very close personally. We talk frequently and give each other advice. Because we're not in the same function, we have an opportunity to coach each other."

Even though the sisters' time as MBA students overlapped for a year, their different emphases kept them from attending classes together; Jamila focused on marketing and supply chain, while Denise studied organizational behavior. Still, Denise says her older sister helped her prepare for graduate school.

"My sister played a role in sending me to graduate school, while I was finishing my theater degree," she says. "She helped me know what to expect. Because I'm a very structured person, I like to know what to look forward to before I start something; she helped me with that. We also lived together for a year. It was great to spend more time living together before we went our separate ways."

Besides having the MBA background, the sisters are alike in many ways. They both served missions for the LDS Church (Jamila in Hawaii; Denise in Spain), and they both had to adjust to different climates after graduating and moving away from Provo (Jamila lives in Alabama, while Denise currently resides in Wisconsin).

And the Cutliff sisters aren't the only business-minded people in their family. They are third-generation business school graduates, with a father who earned an MBA and a MAcc from Central Michigan University and a grandmother who used her business degree to manage a store in the early twentieth century.

"Not only can the two of us speak 'business lingo' with each other but also with our father," Jamila says. "It's nice to have someone in the family who can understand what you do on a day-to-day basis."

Despite the family ties, each sister is loyal to her brand.

"I'm a Frito Lay enthusiast," Jamila says. "If you go into my pantry, you will find it filled with its products."

And no family relationship will change that.




Aaron Call is an opportunist. And it's not just because he works for a company that helps business owners solve problems in areas like human resources and risk management.

Call graduated in 2003 with a BS in business management. Since then he has worked for a national corporation, a small Utah-based business, a start-up venture, and an expanding enterprise that has twice been named to the Inc 500 Fastest Growing Companies list.

His career started at Payless ShoeSource in Topeka, Kansas, where Call was employed as a distribution analyst. While there he developed a system that measured the inventory levels and sales results for any given product line, an assignment that allowed him to make presentations in front of senior executives and management team members.

"In Kansas you interact with lots of people who have different backgrounds and degrees," Call says. "I learned how to communicate at a business level and to challenge others' thinking--while having my own thinking challenged without feeling personally attacked."

While he admits Payless seemed like a great fit for him, Call wanted to work in an executive position sooner rather than later, and he moved to become director of operations for Evolution Services in South Jordan, Utah, in 2004. The move allowed Call to do things only two years after graduation that most business professionals would have to wait much longer to even consider.

In 2006 Call helped start Core Innovative Solutions in Midvale, Utah, where he was named chief operating officer and charged with overseeing all sales and operations for the business. After enrolling its first client on 1 January 2006, the company experienced double-digit growth in its first year.

"Jumping around is not the ideal way to build a strong résumé, and I understand that," Call says. "But I saw this as an opportunity to diversify myself, to not just be 'the operations guy' but to have my hands in every asset of the business, from accounting to marketing to sales, and to have a full picture of what it takes to run a business and hold 50 percent ownership in it."

On 1 March 2009 Core Innovative Solutions was acquired by G&A Partners, a Houston-based human resource outsourcing firm. But rather than make the jump to a new venture, Call decided to stay on as the regional executive in Utah.

"The acquisition of Core Innovative Solutions, which is such an up-and-coming industry player within Utah, provides us a solid foothold in the West," says John Allen, president and COO of G&A Partners. "By combining the strengths of these two organizations, we will not only broaden G&A's geographical reach, but we will also expand our service capabilities as well."

Opportunity knocked again--and Call answered.




MBA graduate John Arthur Harris' multinational ancestry of English, Chinese, Swiss, and Spanish blood isn't his only international connection. Serving in various assignments in business and diplomatic roles, he learned to adjust quickly to new climates, cultures, and languages.

Born in Chile, Harris moved with his mother to Uruguay when he was three months old and joined the LDS Church at age sixteen. He married his wife, Nydia, in 1968, and the two lived in Provo while John finished a BS and MS in electrical engineering at BYU in 1971. Then the traveling started.

"I had an offer to work for Hewlett-Packard, and the church also offered me a job to start seminaries and institutes in Peru and Ecuador," Harris says. "It was a difficult decision. I struggled to get good grades in engineering, and the church position would mean giving up my new profession. We didn't know if the church would help us with housing or insurance, but we considered it a church assignment and said yes."

The Harris family didn't leave Latin America for seven years. After the seminary assignment, Harris was called to serve as president of the Argentina Buenos Aires North Mission. Even though their service spanned the Argentine guerrilla wars of the 1970s, the Harrises recall fondly the "wonderful experience." Like all good things, however, it came to an end, and the family had to return home.

"Having taught the missionaries to dedicate themselves fully to the mission, I could not job hunt, so I decided the only way to go back was to go back to school," Harris says. "I registered in the MBA program." He then worked two jobs while in school, graduating in 1980. Even though it is recommended that MBA students not work for two years, Harris' family situation necessitated the sacrifice.

"By the time I earned my MBA, we had five children," he says. "The effort was overwhelming; I slept only twenty hours a week many times, which physically hurt."

Harris worked for IBM in New York and Venezuela and then was recruited by various companies to work in marketing and sales, eventually climbing the ladder to his position as VP of business development and international sales.

In 1993 Harris received his first diplomatic assignment for the U.S. government as commercial consul in Monterrey, Mexico. He was later promoted to commercial counselor in Mexico City, and the church called him as an Area Seventy.

His diplomatic life carried him to Chile and Brazil, with a brief stop in Utah, during the next several years, and he served as an Area Seventy with responsibilities in each area where he resided. While serving in Brazil he was also called as the first counselor in the São Paulo Missionary Training Center and received the Bronze Medal for Outstanding Professional in the Department of Commerce.

In his final diplomatic assignment, Harris and his wife moved to Tel Aviv, Israel, where he worked as a commercial counselor at the U.S. Embassy, heading commercial efforts in Israel and the West Bank and leading a team of both Israelis and Palestinians. Harris retired from diplomacy in June 2009 and formed a consulting firm that provides companies with international business development assistance.

"Since I was baptized, life has opened incredible opportunities. Growing in the world and serving in the church; receiving three degrees from BYU; working in international assignments; and being involved with ministers, presidents, and corporate executives as well as wonderful saints in many countries has been a marvelous adventure," he says.

Published by the Marriott School at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Copyright 2012 by Brigham Young University. All rights reserved. All communications should be sent to Marriott Alumni Magazine, 490 Tanner Building, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602. Email: marriottmag@byu.edu. Telephone: (801) 422-5083. Fax: (801) 422-0501. The views expressed are those of the various authors and not necessarily the Marriott School. Change your mailing address here.