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Building alliances amid recovery

Monica Mason ’07MEMBA and family outside their new home in Atlanta. The family is still adjusting to life after Hurricane Katrina, and like many others, will be for a long time to come.

As Hurricane Katrina gathered strength in the Gulf Coast last August, New Orleans’ resident and first-year Goizueta executive MBA student Monica Mason ’07MEMBA arrived in Atlanta to take part in orientation. She told her husband and three children she’d see them in a few days. Little did she know they’d end up in Atlanta.

Mason, along with her family and nearly twenty other hurricane evacuees, lived with an Atlanta relative in her four-bedroom house where they watched television broadcasts of her hometown as it flooded. She realized she wouldn’t be going home anytime soon. “What do you do? Do you enroll the kids in school? What about my job, a place to stay? You realize you have to make arrangements to survive,” says Mason.

A similar list of questions went through the mind of fellow student Michael Frith ’06MEMBA. Although his home in Lafayette, La. wasn’t damaged, Frith was left without a job as the new position he’d accepted was put on hold indefinitely because of the hurricane. So, with Goizueta’s understanding, for nearly a month after Katrina hit, Frith volunteered at a Lafayette shelter. “[Evacuees] were getting off the buses wet. It was an incredibly moving experience,” says Frith, who put in twelve-hour days. “I’ve never worked so hard in my life—or been so rewarded.”

As the first trucks dropped off supplies, Frith discovered there was no system in place for the distribution of toiletries, clothes, and other donations for the shelter’s 6,000 evacuees, so he established one. “I was able to put into place a lot of things I’d learned in school,” says Frith of his newly acquired organization and management skills.

Katrina cost Mason, an attorney, her job as a compliance officer at a bank. Her husband’s job was eliminated as well. When the couple decided to relocate to Atlanta, several members of the Goizueta community, including student Laura Barfield ’06MBA, networked on their behalf. “She really took charge,” recalls Mason. “She was tireless and a true advocate.”

The Goizueta offices of alumni relations and career services, as well as both the Executive and Full-time MBA Program offices worked with the couple, and the school gave both Mason and Frith a break on tuition. According to Frith, Edgar Leonard, associate professor of marketing and associate dean of the W. Cliff Oxford Executive MBA Program, was incredibly helpful in making that break a reality.

Little gestures made life easier, too. Allison Gilmore, assistant director of the W. Cliff Oxford Executive MBA Program, sat down with Mason and searched online for places to live. “That made a huge difference,” notes Mason. Catherine Bennett ’05MEMBA, understanding the desire for having things to which one is accustomed, sent Mason bedding and towels—complete with a monogram. Also, Chauntese Williams, an employee at the Conference Center—where Mason stayed for a time—took time out to personally bring Mason clothing and other household items. Several students donated gift cards.

Asked to speak at the Association of Corporate Counsel’s annual meeting, Mason addressed 1,000 attorneys not only about her life as a displaced professional, but also on the need for more strategic and far-reaching business unit contingency planning. The General Counsel for Deere & Company was in the audience, and later offered Mason a job as an attorney for the company. She accepted.

Unlike Mason, Frith will head back to Louisiana when he graduates this May. “I’ve chosen not to relocate. That choice was important to me,” he says. “I love the state and the heritage here.” Frith, formerly an account executive for a medical supplier, believes his career is about to take an entrepreneurial turn. “It’s the only way to stay,” he adds, noting the job market in Louisiana wasn’t the greatest before the hurricane. “Hopefully twenty years from now I’ll have a great story to tell.”

Allison Shirreffs


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