Marriott School Unites for 188-mile Race

Finance professor Phil Bryson running
to meet up with teammatesPROVO, Utah – Jul 23, 2009 – "Bernie Madoff with our money." "Honk if you're paying your neighbor's mortgage." "We're too big to fail."  Not exactly the slogans you'd expect to see at an intensive long-distance run, but these and others could be found on vans supporting the Marriott School Subprime Securities team at the 2009 Ragnar Relay Wasatch Back.

In the 188-mile run from Logan to Park City, runners climb 14,562 feet over everything from suburban sidewalks to mountainous dirt paths. A team of 12 divides up the race, with each member running three legs. Subprime Securities finished fifth out of 46 in the men's corporate category and 41st out of all 162 men's teams. Team members say they were pleased — and a little surprised — with the result, considering the diversity of ages within the team. The youngest member was 23 while the oldest was half a century his senior.

A Marriott School team ran in last year's race, and Sterling Bone, the 2009 team captain, says he wanted to build on previous successes by increasing participation from different parts of the Marriott School.

Scott Summers, associate professor of accounting,
driving a van that took team members to
exchange points.And that's exactly what he got. Members from nearly every part of the school ran on the team. Bone was joined by fellow professors: Jeff Larson from marketing, Scott Summers and David Wood from accounting, Steve Thorley and Phil Bryson from finance, Jim Hansen from information systems and Scott Thompson from ROTC. Two students, marketing undergraduate John Peterson and economics undergraduate Ian Wright, also ran on the team along with Assistant Dean Ron Seamons and National Advisory Council member Lloyd Hansen.

Team members say working toward a common goal through difficult challenges helped them understand and appreciate each others' places within the Marriott School. The faculty on the team especially appreciated the chance to get to know a member of the NAC because of the council's role in supporting the school.

"We've worked on projects with the faculty to improve curriculum and recruiting," says Hansen, "and I think the better we know the people that we're working with, the better we can accomplish our professional goals."

(From l to r): Subprime Securities team members
Steve Thorley, Jeff Larson, Jim Hansen, John Peterson,
Sterling Bone, Lloyd Hansen, Ian Wright, Ron Seamons,
Phil Bryson, and Scott Summers.Thorley recalls an experience demonstrating this sense of collaboration. He had been assigned a section of Guardsman Pass, the most difficult leg of the race with a total elevation climb of 1,678 feet over four miles. But after a mile up the slope, a sharp pain seized Thorley, and he was unable to finish. Wright came to his rescue finishing the leg for him despite having already run his share. Wright says experiences like this helped him see his professors in a new light.

"We see them in the classroom all the time, but to have an experience like this is truly educational," he says. "As I heard professors talking about their students, I could see they cared about them."

Marriott School involvement extended beyond the team itself; Subprime Securities participated in part because of the race's alumni connections. Former Brigham Young University students Tanner Bell and Dan Hill founded the Wasatch Back in 2004 with only 24 teams. The pair won second place in the 2005 BYU Student Entrepreneur of the Year competition and has grown the race into a series of a dozen events across the country with plans to add about five more per year.

"The Marriott School was where this all started for us," says Hill. To see it come full circle is pretty rewarding. The school encourages its entrepreneurs to ‘learn, earn, return.' I feel like we're doing that."

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems and entrepreneurship. The school's mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School's graduate and undergraduate programs.