Sonita (Wachtel) Uijt de Haag
(04/21/2008)
After GLC I went on to get two concurrent masters at OU: an MA in International Affairs focusing on Southeast Asia and an MBA. After I finished my coursework, I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to complete my thesis. My focus was on cross-cultural management in the Malaysian context, specifically how Indian, Chinese, and Malays (Muslims) interact in a rapidly developing environment. All in all, this was a great experience, I got to work closely with a world renowned cross-cultural management consultant, who was extremely intelligent and helped me with my studies. I met with ambassadors and high level executives for multinational companies, and got to see many sides of the country. Though it was a great experience, my heart (and boyfriend of 4 years) was still in Athens. After my Fulbright I came back to Athens, and got married to Maarten (hence the very long new last name). The reception was like a giant GLC reunion.
Currently, I am the New Business Development Coordinator/Research Analyst at Sunpower Inc. -- a 60 employee research and development company here in Athens. We develop very efficient (Stirling) engines that can be used for anything from powering space missions, to heating your home and generating solar power. We have partners around the world, and are currently working on commercializing one of our engines for solar and residential applications. Though the company has a lot of employees, the admin staff is very small and tight knit -- we all do a little bit of everything. I have found that the skills I learned in GLC have been a huge advantage, specifically being able to deal with chaos as a challenge, and to tackle tasks I know nothing about with a good attitude. In the real world there is very little hand holding, there are no syllabi for doing your job. So it is a huge asset to be able to take vague problem and have the self discipline and skills to teach yourself how to solve it. This is definitely something I learned in the GLC.
I have been at Sunpower for a year, mainly I dealt with managing a $22 million contract with NASA, but I was recently promoted to coordinating our new business efforts (prepping and finding bids, proposals, etc.) and helping the president with researching market opportunities. Interestingly, we have hired a GLC alumna to take my place!
If any engineers are looking for jobs in Athens let me know, we are always looking for EEs and MEs.
