Built by the Notre Dame Network: How One Executive MBA Team Turned Classroom Trust Into a Shared Mission

How the Team Came Together

For five Notre Dame Executive MBA students, a class project became something much bigger: a team, a company and a new way to Grow the Good in Business.

When Brian Lalonde, Jen Pittman, Dr. Stacia Murphy, Alexander Canacci and Justin Hanley entered the Notre Dame Executive MBA program, they each came with different backgrounds, different goals and different reasons for choosing Notre Dame.

Brian had spent his career in the earth-moving rental industry and was looking for his next chapter after selling a family business. Jen was seeking both business knowledge and the kind of network that could shape the next phase of her career. Stacia wanted to better understand how business could support people and communities. Alex, a retired Army officer from nearby Culver, Indiana, saw Notre Dame as the fulfillment of a long-held dream. Justin, a technology and data leader, wanted formal business training and a broader perspective on how technology could create meaningful impact.

In the Executive MBA program, they found both the graduate program they were looking for and a group of people whose experiences, values and leadership styles complemented one another in unexpected ways. “We were put together as a team,” Brian said. “And I think I recognized right away that we were a pretty special group because there was a lot of diversification, but we also worked really, really well together.”

That learning team, formed with intention by the Executive MBA program, quickly became more than a group assigned to complete class projects. During their first-year immersion in Ireland, the group began building trust, learning one another’s strengths and seeing how their different experiences could come together.

Stacia was the first one to take notice: “The thought and the intention that Notre Dame puts into creating teams from different backgrounds, it was amazing for us,” she said. “It’s the first time I felt such organic jelling with one another that I just knew whatever it was, I was on board.”

Then, during a February residency, the conversation became more real. After class, Brian invited the group to meet at Legends on campus. Sitting together in a corner booth, they began talking seriously about what they could build. They did not yet know exactly what the business would become, but they knew the team was strong enough to try. “I will never, ever forget sitting at the corner booth in Legends,” Alex said. “That’s where it was born.”

Building Something Bigger Together

The result was Iron Ranch Equipment, an earth-moving equipment rental company built by the team while they were still completing the Executive MBA. But for the group, the story is not simply about launching a business. It is about what became possible because of Notre Dame: the network, the faculty support, the classroom learning, the cohort encouragement and the shared belief that business can be a force for good.

“Notre Dame really brought us together,” Jen said. “What clicked was beyond a business model. It was the team.”

From the beginning, the Notre Dame network played a direct role in helping the team move from idea to execution. Their first customer came from the EMBA ’26 Gold cohort: Troy Kent, the President of Kent Power. One classmate provided insurance support, while another offered financial advisory guidance. Others in the program helped with the website, feedback and connections. Even their group projects became opportunities to test, refine and strengthen their business. “Every group project is an Iron Ranch group project,” Brian said. “And the whole class has basically given us feedback.”

That support extended beyond classmates. Faculty members offered guidance as the team worked through real-time business decisions, from governance and operating agreements to accounting structures, finance, marketing and growth strategy. “We’ve had professors who helped us think through governance considerations,” Jen said. “We’ve had others who’ve helped us think about how the future of the company could develop.”

For Alex, the most powerful part of the experience has been how immediately the team could apply what they were learning. “They talk about learning over the weekend and then applying it on Monday,” he said. “We have literally done exactly what they say. It’s not just a tagline for us. It’s our way of operating.”

Justin also described the curriculum as deeply practical because of the faculty members. They brought real-world experience into the classroom, and suddenly lessons from courses like mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, business law and marketing quickly became part of how the team structured agreements, modeled budgets and made decisions. “It’s not just academic,” he said. “This is the real world applied to the class setting, and I found that incredibly useful.”

Just as important was the culture of support surrounding them. When the team traveled to pitch their idea to an investment group, classmates sent texts offering encouragement, prayers and good luck. For Jen, that kind of support reflected something distinct about the Notre Dame experience. “It’s not small just to have the support of an entire cohort and really an entire school behind you,” she said. “I don’t know where else we’d find that.”

Growing the Good Together

As Iron Ranch grew, several members of the team made the decision to join the company full time. For Stacia, the leap did not feel risky because the group had already been tested in the Executive MBA environment. “We were already proven in class for a year,” she said. “We’d already seen each other under pressure.”

Jen felt the same way. Around the same time, she received an unexpected job offer for a role she once would have considered a dream opportunity. But the Executive MBA, and the team it had given her, had changed what success looked like for her. “In two years, the education and this team completely reframed what I wanted,” she said.

That shared purpose continues to shape how the team approaches Iron Ranch. For them, the business is not simply about equipment rental, but about people, employees, customers and the communities connected to the work.

“Iron Ranch is about more than equipment rental,” Stacia said. “It’s about people, the employees who make the business work, the operators and customers who depend on us, and the communities shaped by the work our equipment helps make possible.”

That people-first mindset reflects Mendoza’s vision to Grow the Good in Business. The team hopes to build not only a successful company, but one that creates opportunities for employees, families and future entrepreneurs.

Brian describes the goal as building a company that takes care of customers by first focusing on employees. “I view it as what impact have we made not only in our employees’ lives, but with their families,” he said. “How many people were able to start their own business because of Iron Ranch? And that’s pretty exciting.”

Now, as the newest graduates of the Executive MBA program, the group continues to carry forward the relationships and shared purpose that shaped their experience at Notre Dame. What began as a learning team has become a lasting example of what can happen when talented leaders are brought together through the Notre Dame network and united by a shared purpose.

For Brian, Jen, Stacia, Alex and Justin, the Executive MBA did more than help them grow as leaders, it made the team possible.

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