Jan. 25, 2013

UCF Athletics Social Media Directory

By Andy Seeley
UCFAthletics.com

ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) -- UCF Athletics hosted a Business Leaders Roundtable at the Gray Robinson Law Firm on Jan. 17. UCF Vice President and Director of Athletics Todd Stansbury and Assistant Director of Athletics for Student Services Keith Embray invited leaders from the Central Florida business community to discuss the qualities their businesses look for in recent graduates and how UCF student-athletes can utilize their unique characteristics and skills to become “first-round draft picks” of local businesses.

The First-Round Draft Pick program will be a part of the UCF Student-Athlete Leadership Institute and is scheduled to begin in Fall 2013. Stansbury and Embray also talked with the business leaders about opportunities to partner with the Student-Athlete Leadership Institute during the roundtable session.

“This was a great initial meeting of some of the more influential people in the Central Florida business community,” Embray said. “The Leadership Institute and programs such as First-Round Draft Pick are priorities for our Director of Athletics. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to partner with these great companies and others in the future. It was a very productive discussion. Everyone involved gave us great insight and ways to look for solutions to better assist UCF student-athletes in their transition to the workforce.”

Topics discussed during the meeting included: core competencies companies are looking for in new hires; the importance of leadership, time-management and communications skills; how UCF Athletics can continue to properly equip student-athletes with all the skills necessary to succeed following graduation and career, personal and professional development programming.

The following is a list of the business leaders and companies who were in attendance at the roundtable session:

Dave Munro, Medtronic
Jennifer Ziegler, Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Bert Fonseca, Skanska USA
Bill Magee, Shaw Industries
Paul Mears, Mears Transportation
Ray Gilley, TW²
Bob Garvy, INTECH Investment Management
John DuBrule, Church Street Capital, LLC
Donna Bardell, Harris Corporation
Marie Perry, Coca-Cola
Mark Moore, Kavaliro
Rebecca Reynolds, Fifth-Third Bank
Lee Johnson, Florida Hospital

UCF is receiving feedback from those involved in the meeting, with similar events planned for the future. For more information on the UCF Student-Athlete Leadership Institute or First-Round Draft Pick program, contact Embray at 407.823.3126 or email kembray@athletics.ucf.edu.