Our Culture, Focus and People Make Me Proud

I rarely use our blog to talk about our company, but Friday night, at our firm’s 20th year holiday party, I could not help but feel tremendous pride in what our organization has accomplished and the culture we’ve developed along the way.

We have an amazing team—most of our people having been with us for years. As I gazed around the room, I saw some of the smartest, most savvy and innovative people I have ever known. Each of them taking tremendous pride in their work and their knowledge of being experts in their individual crafts. When I thought about our accomplishments I realized that our team’s honesty, transparency and passion is the foundation of the kind of culture and commitment that I have always wanted for our organization.

But as I was thinking about our company I realized what gives me the most pleasure is that the work we do impacts many people’s lives. Our firm focuses on helping private-sector career colleges to cost-effectively and efficiently find students who can be helped by their institutions. And during this time in our country’s history when it is popular to attack private-sector education, we stand resolute and proud to be doing work on this sector’s behalf. For unlike what people have read in the newspapers, on some of the aggressive blogs and been told by the Obama administration, most private sector schools do a tremendous job of educating their students teaching them the job-ready skills that make the difference between success and failure in their lives. And this is not hyperbole! Government and non-partisan statistics about graduation rates and success rate prove what I am saying to be true!

So while other marketing companies are running away from working with this sector of education and diversifying their businesses, we are working harder than ever to make it succeed—because a successful private sector education system in America means that students who have a difficult time succeeding in a government-run bureaucratic systems can find a school that gives them the flexibility, support-systems and the kind of innovative educational approaches that they need to learn, get a good job and take care of their families.

So as I sat there at our holiday party, I felt the pride of what our firm and our people have created. And looking back at the last 20 years, I realized that there isn’t anything that I would rather have been doing.