Breaking the Ice
Lisa Brown, N’88, is quick to say that Northeastern made her who she is. A co-op on Tufts Medical Center’s oncology floor, for instance, helped her see that she wanted to become an oncology nurse.
But even beyond that, the Pelham, New Hampshire, resident says, the university taught her to focus on what’s important. Now Brown encourages her children to do the same. And she’s created an item that helps families everywhere nudge their young ones to think about the big picture.
Her invention, MatChats, is a set of paper placemats printed with questions like “What characteristic do you look for when choosing a friend?” and “How will you make the world a better place today or in the future?” The mealtime queries serve as quick conversation starters. Brown believes they may also help children live a more satisfying life.
As often happens, she was inspired by a need in her own life. Newly widowed, she was driving home with her children one day when she realized that talking with them had become more difficult. “I wanted to make sure our conversations were meaningful,” she explains. And so MatChats was born.
Brown has certainly blazed a career path filled with meaning. She’s been an oncology nurse at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She’s worked with HIV-positive patients in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
These days, she’s a psychiatric nurse practitioner in psychopharmacology at Bridgewell Counseling Services and Lowell General Hospital. She’s also a clinical instructor at Salem State College.
Not coincidentally, Brown observes a market for her product in the population she serves: “Every day, I see a lack of coping skills. MatChats was about how I wanted to parent my children.”
Brown plans to add to her product line, currently sold at <www.matchats.com>. She also wants to move into retail.
Her eagerness for new ventures was kindled by her alma mater, she says.
“Northeastern expanded my worldview. And taught me to conquer my fears.”
— Magdalena Hernandez, MBA’02
Green Is the New Black
Sure, you recycle your newspapers, tote your groceries in a canvas bag, maybe even compost at home. But, to save the planet, would you wear someone else’s shirt?
Alex Eaves, AS’99, hopes so. His online business, Stay Vocal, which he started in 2003, is dedicated to convincing consumers to conserve resources by reusing them. The company sells salvaged clothing and accessories, including old T-shirts emblazoned with new designs. Many of the items for sale are one-of-a-kind.
At Northeastern, the journalism major–slash–skateboarder had co-ops at the Boston Globe and Hardcorps, a surf and skate company where his responsibilities ran from taking photos to writing music reviews for Flat magazine. On the side, Eaves says, he had a “street promotions company” with a friend. He started handling promotions for political punk-rock bands.
Then came the idea for Stay Vocal, which originally sold skate gear and pitched positive messages to skateboarders.
“Over the next four years, the company’s focus was all over the place,” Eaves remembers. “Making T-shirts, stickers. But ‘reuse’ was always the theme.”
By June 2008, the Norwell, Massachusetts, entrepreneur had won a $20,000 award from Advanta Corporation for best small-business idea.
Eaves says Northeastern definitely helped his career catch air. “My advertising classes got me ready,” he says. “I learned about branding, created products for class.”
Today, he’s passionate about his message. “I’m trying to teach people to reuse before they recycle, because recycling uses energy,” he explains. “Once people get it, they love it.”
Dreams for the future? Eaves hopes to expand into bricks-and-mortar stores soon. And someday he’d like to build a “reuse” skateboard park.
One more thing: “I want my company to hire Northeastern co-ops.”
— Magdalena Hernandez, MBA’02
Making Things Click
What has defined co-op over the past century? Students’ eagerness to use their co-op jobs to explore career options.
Just ask Ian Smith, E’09, whose co-op journey eventually landed him a coveted position in an Apple lab, where he helped improve the iPod Nano click wheel.
The Nashville, Tennessee, native’s first co-op was decidedly less glamorous. In 2006, Smith pored over Excel spreadsheets to check inventory at Raytheon, in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Nonetheless, he picked up valuable experience. “I learned about the behind-the-scenes work of engineering,” he says. “Ordering parts, for instance.”
The next year, Smith worked on military robotics at Waltham-based Foster-Miller. He helped develop a new version of the TALON robot, used in Iraq to clear out bombs and other explosives. He also analyzed the accuracy of a sniper-detection system, traveling down to Blackwater’s North Carolina headquarters to monitor a “sniper” gunning for a Humvee.
By 2008, the year of his Apple co-op, Smith’s rookie status was history. He was one of a select team tapped to upgrade the click wheel of the iPod Nano released in October 2008. He also worked on the iPod Shuffle that hit stores in January 2009. It amazes him, he says, that millions of people use products he had a hand in. “Whenever I see a friend with a Nano,” he laughs, “I say, ‘You like that?’”
Co-op gives you a chance to learn an industry’s ropes, Smith notes: “You become more confident in your area of specialty. Co-op is priceless. Everyone should go through it before they graduate.”
In Smith’s experience, co-op makes learning a cyclical process. “Classes really expose us to basic tenets of what we’ll do on the job,” he says. “Without the basic circuits class, for instance, I would not have even been able to function on the job.”
Of course, theory must eventually meet practice.
“You might learn a formula in class, but co-op helps you learn why it’s important,” Smith says.
Next, Smith is off to MIT to pursue a doctorate in electrical engineering. He plans to study power electronics. “It’s a broad field,” he says. “I can specialize later and not feel as if I’ve been left behind.”
— Magdalena Hernandez, MBA’02