Brandman Speaks

Elizabeth Bader always thought her main "career" would involve being a wife and mother. But by her early 30s, she was the divorced, single mother to a toddler and desperately in need of career advice. In this Career Talk podcast,

Elizabeth Bader always thought her main "career" would involve being a wife and mother. But by her early 30s, she was the divorced, single mother to a toddler and desperately in need of career advice. In this Career Talk podcast,

Elizabeth Bader always thought her main "career" would involve being a wife and mother. But by her early 30s, she was the divorced, single mother to a toddler and desperately in need of career advice. In this Career Talk podcast, Bader explains how she got back into the workforce, offers advice on those seeking similar careers and provides tips for others who may have been out of the workforce, by their own choosing or otherwise. Transcript: Welcome to Brandman Speaks: Career Talks. I’m Cindy O’Dell and recently I spoke with Elizabeth Bader, an executive briefing consultant at Experian. Elizabeth always thought she was destined to be a wife and mother. But when she was in her early 30s, she was newly divorced and the single mother of a young child. Like so many Brandman students, she realized she needed a career. She just wasn’t sure what it would be. I was very fortunate that I learned about the Women’s Opportunity Center, which sadly no longer exists. But it was a wonderful place where women in transition could go to get a career counseling, resume assistance, interviewing skills on a sliding scale. And I had the great fortune of meeting a woman who became my mentor and my friend and she was able to coach me into identifying the next step in my career path, which included starting a master's degree program at Chapman University. But before starting back to school, Elizabeth needed to know what to study. I took some aptitude testing, which I highly recommend. I took the Johnson O'Connor Center for Human Engineering testing in Los Angeles, which is a two-day commitment with a financial,  but I highly recommend aptitude testing whether its Myers-Briggs or Strength Finder or many that are available. I believe that some are available through the Brandman Career Counseling Center, either at nominal or no charge. If you haven't taken aptitude and interest testing, it's a great way to learn about yourself and to find out perhaps how you're naturally made, which always makes school and work a lot more enjoyable. So I did this aptitude testing and I discovered my strengths were in psychology and sociology. And so as I started looking for occupations or vocations within those segments, I stumbled upon graduate school programs. And initially, I thought I was going to be a career counselor and get my master's degree in career counseling. However as I was researching graduate programs I came across the organizational leadership program at Chapman and decided to pursue that, and that, you know, fundamentally changed the trajectory of my career and myself as a person. I had read a book by Warren Bennis in the late ‘90s that actually was on the bestseller list on becoming a leader. And I think it was probably one of the first books that ever crossed over into the mainstream. And I read it and I thought,  “Really? People do this? This is the career?” And I had no idea. So when I found the organizational leadership program. I said, “Wow, this is awesome!” so I decided to pursue the organizational leadership program. It just made so much sense and my career counselor just said, you know, I lit up -- my whole .. my eyes, my person,  and my demeanor changed when we were doing talking about that curriculum. Being in school also introduced her to a new network of connections. I was very fortunate. A classmate of mine was that Ingram Micro at the time and she was in the training development department, and I desperately needed to get back to work and start honing my skills and I was willing to work for free. And at the time, there was a gentleman there who was a like-minded soul who was the head of the department and gave me a chance, which is what everyone usually needs someone to open the door and invite you in to participate.

Elizabeth Bader always thought her main "career" would involve being a wife and mother. But by her early 30s, she was the divorced, single mother to a toddler and desperately in need of career advice. In this Career Talk podcast,

Elizabeth Bader always thought her main "career" would involve being a wife and mother. But by her early 30s, she was the divorced, single mother to a toddler and desperately in need of career advice. In this Career Talk podcast,

Kevin Bailey, President of VF Action Sports and CEO of Vans (VF Corporation) spoke to a group of business students at the Irvine campus and it was recorded as a podcast for this episode of Brandman Speaks. Joining in the discussion is Joe Cockrell, vice chancellor of Communications for Brandman University. During the podcast, students asked questions about Bailey's role as CEO of Vans, social media, global branding, current issues facing the company and its global mission, and challenges Bailey has faced on the road to becoming an executive. Transcript: Joe Cockrell: [00:00] Welcome to Brandman Speaks. I'm Joe Cockrell, vice chancellor of communications at Brandman University, and this episode is being recorded with a live audience of select students here at the Brandman campus in Irvine. [00:12] It is my pleasure to have special guest Kevin Bailey. Mr. Bailey serves as president and CEO of Vans Americas, owned by the publicly traded VF Corp., which also has such brands as The North Face, Wrangler and Timberline. Back when VF bought Vans for $370 million in 2004, Vans was publicly traded as well. The company expects the 50-year-old brand to do $2.3 billion in sales this year, up from around $2 billion -- a measly 2 billion -- last year, making it the fastest growing part of the VF portfolio. So Kevin thank you so much for joining us today. Kevin Bailey: [00:49] Thanks for having me. Joe Cockrell: [00:50] I have questions here that some of the students have submitted. And let's start with the basics. Can you describe a little bit about how you came into this career and your background? Kevin Bailey: [01:03] Sure. It's kind of a crazy story and I've had a very interesting ride, I guess. I'm from the East Coast originally. Grew up in northern New Jersey just outside of New York City. And I guess my first ... I was a typical high school kid, right, going to school for honors math, honors science all that stuff, probably targeting pre-med at the time, not having any clue what I really wanted to do. But I started working in retail and if I'm honest about it I started in retail as a stock kid at the Gap because I thought I could meet girls. [01:34] I'm just going to be honest about it. [01:36] That was the plan as I school kid and I there were college girls who worked there and I thought that was cool. And the Gap then sold multiple brands. It wasn't just a gap so they sell Levi's and other stuff. But I started my ..really then that sort of got the bug in me for retail. And that's really where I first got bit a little bit by having some good managers that oversaw me gave me a lot of different responsibilities and helped me learn some things that I didn't know about. And then, as well, I found retail to be a real problem-solving environment. Every day you're dealing with consumers, different issues. You're dealing with inventory in and outs; you're dealing with a variety of situations; and you're learning how to sell, which I think is a big valuable skill. I also was an artist. I tried art school after graduating high school because I was confused and thought I was going to go to med school and pre-med and I changed my mind and went to art school. Final act of rebellion from my parents and then went off to University of Vermont. And through all of that though I stayed in retail and I always worked in retail and after school that's ... I got asked to take on an assistant manager job in a retail store -- then it was an American Eagle Outfitters store that I worked in part time while in school. American Eagle then sold other things other than just American Eagle product too then. And I just sort of stepped into that life then and began the business career really by working in retail and grew up in retail. [02:58] I was blessed and got to work with several founder-led companies in the time and sort of s...

Kevin Bailey, President of VF Action Sports and CEO of Vans (VF Corporation) spoke to a group of business students at the Irvine campus and it was recorded as a podcast for this episode of Brandman Speaks. Joining in the discussion is Joe Cockrell,

Kevin Bailey, President of VF Action Sports and CEO of Vans (VF Corporation) spoke to a group of business students at the Irvine campus and it was recorded as a podcast for this episode of Brandman Speaks. Joining in the discussion is Joe Cockrell,

Kevin Bailey, President of VF Action Sports and CEO of Vans (VF Corporation) spoke to a group of business students at the Irvine campus and it was recorded as a podcast for this episode of Brandman Speaks. Joining in the discussion is Joe Cockrell,

Kevin Bailey, President of VF Action Sports and CEO of Vans (VF Corporation) spoke to a group of business students at the Irvine campus and it was recorded as a podcast for this episode of Brandman Speaks. Joining in the discussion is Joe Cockrell,