Alumni Connections

David Johnson, class of 2011, earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication (BAC) with a career focus in Promotions and Advertising. He served as an Admissions Advisor at Ohio University for nearly three years and recently began a new role as the Assistant Director of Annual Giving at Ohio University.

As Assistant Director of Annual Giving, David strives to increase financial support for Ohio University's students, faculty, and programs by reaching out to alumni and friends of the institution through personal solicitation, donor cultivation, and stewardship. He uncovers alumni areas of passion for the institution and frequently discusses making gifts to these areas or starting scholarships for students.

David earned a Master’s degree in Higher Education from Ohio University in 2014. He loves working for an institution of higher education (mainly because he never wants to leave college). David says that he felt very prepared starting graduate school. While some of his classmates were stressing about using APA format and writing 25+-page research papers, David realized that his BGSU education prepared him for that as an undergraduate.

Of the many great things he learned while at BGSU, David says that his COMM classes taught him the most useful and practical concepts that he still uses today. Presentation skills, persuasive strategies, and the importance of relationship-building are just a few that he uses every day. “You will learn theories and concepts in your Psychology and Business classes, but your Communication classes will bring those all together and show you how to actually apply those to the world in which we live,” assures David.

Joy Harris graduated from BGSU in 2008 with a B.A. in Communication and minor in History.  She currently works for NSK Americas in Ann Arbor, MI as a Procurement Supplier Development Specialist.

NSK Americas is the USA headquarters for the Japan-based company. NSK manufactures ball bearings, roller bearings and linear motion products for the automotive, industrial and agriculture industries. NSK has offices and manufacturing facilities all over the world -- Japan, China, Mexico, Iowa, Indiana, Brazil, India, UK, and many others.

As a procurement supplier development specialist, she is responsible for procuring competitive quotations for the seal and sensor commodity. In addition to obtaining quotations, she works to achieve cost downs on projects identified in annual and monthly reports. She is also required to manage my suppliers by evaluating their pricing, quality and reliability, which requires me to travel to each supplier’s location as needed.

Procurement calls for Joy to be firm and decisive while being amicable. It requires her to possess strong negotiation skills, forecasting abilities, and be a keen listener.  With NSK being a global company, on a daily basis she communicating with her Japanese team members, as well as global representatives from her suppliers. The language barrier can be very challenging in that not only is it hard to understand, it is very easy to interpret tones incorrectly.  Another challenge with working in a global company, are the cultural differences. 

Before NSK, she worked for a company called MTS Seating located in Temperance, MI. MTS is a manufacturer of banquet and restaurant seating (that can be found in the BGSU Union).  There she worked as a Sales Coordinator for 4 years. The field of sales also required that she be a successful communicator.  

“Communication has opened a lot of doors for me.  The classes I took at BGSU prepared me by emphasizing that clear, efficient communication in the work place is very important.  It amazes me to this day how many poor communicators there are in the work force. I believe communication is the foundation for success and that many organizations do not place enough emphasis on it.”

Julie Storch majored in Communication and minored in Marketing and Psychology. She currently works at Flavorseal in Avon, OH as an Inside Sales Specialist.

Flavorseal is a packaging manufacturing company for the food processing and food service industry. As a sales specialist in the food processing division at Flavorseal, Julie is responsible for maintaining and growing an existing customer base as well as prospecting through cold calls for the Northwest territory, which covers 12 states.  Aside from responsibilities of external communication with customers Julie has numerous daily internal communication with their production, shipping, accounting, and purchasing departments. Julie works as a coordinator and spokesperson for her customers to the different departments in her company to ensure their orders arrive to them in a timely manner.  Through her work, Julie has had the opportunity to travel to Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota to meet with her customers face-to-face and grow her relationship with them and secure future business for her company.

Julie's communication classes at BGSU were great preparation for her transition into the workforce by allowing her to grow relationships with customers and maintain continuous strong communications internally at her company.