QUESTION: What are your current career objectives and what role does the MBA have in helping you achieve them?

My long-term career goals are in the field of marketing with a specific interest in brand management. The importance of well-managed brands in a competitive market cannot be overstated. They create significant value and consistently generate higher returns than industry competitors. Effective brand management benefits all stakeholders: customers, shareholders and employees. In many respects a brand is an identity, effectively managing that identity will have significantly positive long-term effects on a companies competitive position in the marketplace.

In order for these continuing effects to be realized a brand management strategy must move beyond the initial placement of a product in the market. Developing a platform on which a brand may extend its reach is critical to success of these long-term positive impacts. Without such a strategy, products will move in to the market and move out just as quickly. The development and maintenance of these strategies in increasingly competitive and fragmented markets is truly where my career interest lies.

Knowing that this is the direction in which I intend to take my career, the next logical step is to take inventory of my skill sets and experiences. This inventory reveals that while I have a strong background with respect to leadership and management skill sets, I do not have a functional knowledge base in the field of marketing. My past successes have been that result of effective employment of my functional expertise in naval logistics and my leadership, management and team building skills. From a functional expertise or functional knowledge point of view, these experiences and successes have little or no relation to neither marketing nor brand management. This is a significant problem if I am to realize my career goals. Now that I have identified the major roadblock to realizing my career goals what do I do next? First I decided I had to leave the Navy. However, separating from the Navy was not an easy decision. I had a good job and one that was largely enjoyable. However, it did not fit into my long-term plans. Thus, when I made the decision to leave the Navy it was paired with the decision to acquire the skill sets and knowledge that will allow me to make my career goals a reality. My post Navy experience has shown me that I have a base of leadership and management skills that are well developed and competitive in a corporate environment. However, my functional expertise in naval logistics has not transferred into a set of skills or knowledge base that is easily utilized in the same environment. Through an MBA program I will seek to develop the knowledge and skill sets that will allow me to compete in the corporate world in the field of marketing.

In choosing Arizona's Eller School of Management as a perspective MBA program I considered many factors. First, it goes without saying that Eller has an impeccable reputation for producing top-notch MBAs. Further, Arizona is clearly making a run up the rankings in recent years. I intend to focus my MBA on marketing, however, I also wish to develop general management, finance and entrepreneurial skill sets as well as to learn how to leverage information systems technologies within the marketing arena. These areas play right into Eller's strengths. Developing these skills will enable me to understand how marketing fits into the larger corporate picture, utilize entrepreneurial knowledge to compete within an organization as well as on my own and hone the leadership and management skills required of future leaders in industry. The Eller School of Management gives me the best chance at attaining these skills and developing them to such a level that I will be able to achieve my long term-career goals.

Second, Arizona's location in the Southwest and its diverse student body are assets of which few schools can boast. The resources and opportunities that exist in this area are unparalleled and growing everyday. The southwest offers a plethora of opportunities for expanding both your professional and personal horizons in a very diverse environment. Eller's efforts to embrace that diversity, both on and off campus, ensure the students a truly robust learning environment, one in which the free exchange of ideas is encouraged. The University of Arizona's environment gives me the best chance to experience culture and ideas in a truly diverse environment.

Lastly, I have chosen Eller because it is hard. I do not have the traditional background that is required of most MBA students. Arizona's MBA program is not a cakewalk for anyone, and that will be especially true of me. However, I will succeed and I will contribute and I will make Arizona's MBA program a better experience for my classmates. Earning my MBA from Eller will be an accomplishment I will be supremely proud of and it gives me the best chance to realize my personal and professional goals.

(Source: Businessweek)