ND Business Briefings: March 2021 alumni news and updates

Former Navy cryptologic technician Marty Durcan wore plenty of hats at his first civilian job with a Chicago-area energy startup, Eligo Energy.

“One day you’re working with the accounting team, the next day you’re doing a finance project, the next you’re running with sales and then you’re going into analytics,” said Durcan, who served four years in the Navy aboard ships stationed in Japan before earning his undergraduate degree in applied mathematics at DePaul University. 

After a year in the workforce, he decided to expand his knowledge of analytics. A colleague, Dennis Whitlow (MSF ’16), who had graduated from the M.S. in Finance program at the University of Notre Dame’s downtown Chicago campus, suggested the M.S. in Business Analytics program in Chicago for working professionals. 

Durcan quickly found ways his coursework could be applied at his day job. “Whatever I had to figure out for school, I would try to apply it to my job. So I was getting benefits on the professional side because I was adding new things to the company,” he said. Class assignments, for instance, turned into new business processes or algorithms to better analyze sales. “It was almost like studying for exams by just applying it to what I’m doing.”   

After earning his MSBA in 2020, Durcan began looking for more professional growth opportunities. Through the Notre Dame network, he eventually landed an interview at EY. “I got someone’s phone number and then someone else’s email and it snowballed like that over the fall,” he said.  

Last month, Durcan started a job as a senior consultant in Digital, Data & Analytics at EY. “I’m doing exactly what I learned in school — what I’m passionate about — every day,” he said. “It’s been awesome.”

Career news

• John A. Schneeberger (BBA ’72) recently retired after a 42-year career as a mergers and acquisitions investment banker in New York City and Boston. His daughter Katie Schneeberger (BBA ’17)  is an associate in the Consumer & Retail Investment Banking Group of Stifel Financial in New York City. John says they both were privileged to have taken marketing professor emeritus John Kennedy’s Principles of Marketing course. John took the course in the spring semester of 1971 and, 43 years later, Katie took the course in the fall semester of 2014. “Katie got the better grade,” John says.
• Paul Mauk (BBA ’88) was promoted to senior vice president of portfolio development at Invitation Homes Inc. He joined the firm in June 2019 as vice president of portfolio development.
• Mike McDaniel (MBA ’00) successfully defended his dissertation research for a Ph.D. in management from the University of Texas in Arlington and will be starting as an assistant professor at Louisiana State University in Shreveport in the fall. His dissertation is titled “The Power of Good: Micro Level Outcomes from Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Mission Orientation.”
• Jereme Sylvain (MSA ’02) was promoted to executive vice president and chief financial officer at DexCom Inc. He previously served as senior vice president of finance and chief accounting officer.
• Gunjan Goel (EMBA ’04) has been named chief information officer of ST Engineering North America. Previously, he was senior vice president of information technology at Cobham.
• Molly Fitzpatrick (BBA ’08) was hired as vice president and member of the senior deal team at The Halifax Group. She was one of nine dealmakers chosen as “Rising Stars of Private Equity” in 2020 by Mergers & Acquisitions. 
• Justin Whitmore (MBA ’11) was appointed chief strategy officer at Keurig Dr. Pepper. Previously he was executive vice president of alternative protein at Tyson Foods.
• Nick Weido (BBA ’12) was promoted to vice president at Gridiron Capital. He joined the firm in 2019 as a senior associate.

Appointments

• Kevin Phelps (BBA ’76) was appointed to the board of directors for AREV Nanotec Brands Inc. He serves as CEO of Immune Therapeutics Inc. 
• Marcos Delgado (MBA ’98) was appointed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to the OneStar National Service Commission.

Honors

• Lacey York (BBA ’97) was named to Forbes’ 2021 Best-In-State Wealth Advisors list in Pennsylvania. She is a member of the Private Wealth Management Leadership Team of Stifel Financial Corp.’s Women’s Initiative Network.
• Nate Alexander (BBA ’17) and Terrell Hunt (MBA ’19) were among the Notre Dame Alumni Association and YoungND board’s 2020 Domer Dozen honorees.

Startup news

• Drizly, a startup co-founded by Cory Rellas (BBA ’09) was acquired by Uber Technologies for $1.1 billion in stock and cash in February. Read more. 

Submit your career news to Mendozabusiness@nd.edu.

Read February’s ND Business Briefings.