"If you want to be a leader, you have to understand how to navigate people, how to present yourself, and how to be professional. And the Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership program at UMBC was monumental in getting me on the right path, and it's a continual journey." Stephen Sauser '20, M.P.S. Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership
Tune into this podcast to hear about Stephen's journey and what it takes to be a leader who innovates.
To learn more about UMBC's M.P.S. in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership, visit us: https://eil.umbc.edu
"If you want to be a leader, you have to understand how to navigate people, how to present yourself, and how to be professional. And the Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership program at UMBC was monumental in getting me on the right path, and it's a continual journey." Stephen Sauser '20, M.P.S. Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership
Tune into this podcast to hear about Stephen's journey and what it takes to be a leader who innovates.
To learn more about UMBC's M.P.S. in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership, visit us: https://eil.umbc.edu
Dennise Cardona 0:00
Welcome to this episode of UMBC Mic'd Up podcast. My name is Dennise Cardona from the Office of Professional Programs here at UMBC. I am joined by a recent graduate of the entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership graduate program, Stephen Sauser. We hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome, Stephen, it's great to have you here with us.
Stephen Sauser 0:21
I'm glad to be here. Thank you.
Dennise Cardona 0:23
So Stephen, you are, would you consider yourself an entrepreneur by heart?
Stephen Sauser 0:28
What I've learned from being in the program, right, having three different types of newer ship, I'm definitely an intrapreneur. I don't compare to my peers that were in the program who were thinking about starting their own businesses or designing their own types of products, I kind of thrive in an environment of just looking at existing problems and solving them for people. And that's why I took the intrapreneurship track of the master's program. And it was a great experience for me, because it, it helped me refine areas where I felt I was already kind of good at. And the program definitely just took it to a whole new level.
Dennise Cardona 1:12
That's great. So for those listening in on this, the difference between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. And of course, there's social partnership as well in the program. So what would you say would be the biggest differentiator between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, if somebody is sort of on the fence and not even sure about which pathway they should seek, I'm assuming intrapreneurship, the one that you're in is more geared towards an internal structure within an organization. And like you said, trying to analyze what the current problems are and innovating within those problems to find solutions. Is that correct?
Stephen Sauser 1:49
Yeah. So I think, you know, when I look at my classmates and other entrepreneurs that I know have, you know, because I follow a lot of my classmates on LinkedIn, and they've done great things with starting businesses and stuff like that, you know, that's, that's a huge weight to carry as an entrepreneur, it's you're on your own for a while, you might have some people around you helping you get that going. But that is a huge task to take on as an individual of raising funding, starting a business, finding out your market, who your customers need to be, and what you're going to do to actually structurally run your business. Right intrapreneurship. You know, because I worked in Northrop Grumman, which is a aerospace and defense contractor. You know, we have about 90,000 employees where I work, and there's many different levels of leadership as you go up the organization, and all kinds of different functions within the organization that are connected and working together. And intrapreneurship is, you know, I'm not starting a business. But I'm still working internally to sell ideas to make our company better. So that it helps, you know, many people across my company, and when, you know, entrepreneurship, when people start businesses, right, the financial gains of that business originally come back to them, and then who's within their business, and then their investors. And it goes outward like that, right? When I'm starting projects, or I'm looking for things to do within Northrop. I'm thinking about how that impacts everyone that I work with, and you know, our overall company and how we're going out to Wall Street. And, you know, what, can we do better within Northrop Grumman?
Dennise Cardona 3:28
Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. And thank you for explaining that. Because I think that's a really important differentiator between the two. And not everybody wants to, like you said, go out there and start their own business, roll up their sleeves, and do all of that digging and, and nurturing and funding and all of that kind of stuff that goes along with entrepreneurship. Some people are geared towards that. But some people like yourself, you, you thrive sounds like you're thriving within an environment and established organization that has the resources already in place for you to be able to go in there now and be a leader and innovate, and be an entrepreneur within that organization. So I think that's so cool. That's really, that's really impressive. What is your current role at Northrop Grumman?
Stephen Sauser 4:14
So currently, I'm a supply chain program manager. I work on some programs out here in Utah, that I can't actually talk about. It's just the nature of what we do. But I've worked on many different programs within a couple different parts of Northrop Grumman. Currently, I'm working on space programs. And when I was living in Baltimore, when I was getting my Master's at UMBC, I was working on a couple of different radar programs. And then I was working on space programs in Baltimore. I never thought I'd be working on the things that I'm working on right now and the impact that they have to the world and the United States. And it's just fascinating to me. I have to pinch myself that I'm working on stuff like this.
Dennise Cardona 4:58
Yeah, when you could have that guy purpose in working for an organization that raises everything to a whole new level and it gives you that reason to get out of bed in the morning and go pursue something that is greater than ourselves really, right. It's it's your, for the betterment of society for the world for the projects that you're working on affects more than just yourself. They, they affect so many other people and society in general. So that must be a really rewarding experience to be able to do that. In terms of the entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership program here at UMBC. Can we talk a little bit about what the journey was to you apply into the program? Like what was your motivation? What what, what got you to say, I really would like to pursue this this program, and how did that all come about?
Stephen Sauser 5:47
Well, there's two parts of that. The first part might be a little bit unique to me. The second part is definitely reasons that my classmates all had of joining the program and what we expected to get out of the program. So I'd started a master's degree in supply chain management, because that's what I do for a living. And, you know, you learn the basic principles of what our function is, and you know, how we're operating within an industry. And, you know, it's not specifically gearing people towards being I'll say transformational with leadership. Right, and Gib Mason, who's the Program Director of the EIL program, is someone that I knew, from being around Baltimore, I give has such an amazing history and track record of being a business owner, a C Class executive at many companies, and starting up big businesses that made millions of dollars and, you know, as give his progress through his life, you know, most of what give does now is turn around and help other people. And, you know, mentors coaches, educates. And I met give while going through a program called the give leadership program, which is run by business volunteers, Maryland. And I was in this one year program, and give was selected to be kind of a lecture about once a month that would come into our class and teach us leadership classes and talk to us about development. And I really just took the gib, because I could just see there was something about this guy that, you know, was very unique, and just, he'd been through a lot, seen a lot, done a lot and came out on top. And I I'm attracted to all types of people who have experiences and are on that type of path. And given I have always stayed in touch since I was in that program. And he reached out to me and said that he was starting this program at UMBC. And I said, Sign me up. I said, whatever I have to do, let me know, you know, my entrance letter or whatever I have to right now. I'll start right now. And fortunately for me, right, our Northrop Grumman facility was 10 miles up the road from UMBC. So taking night classes after work was a breeze for me just getting my nine to five in or nine to six, and driving right down the street and heading to class for a few hours. That was a huge help. For me, I think, after talking to give about the program, and why I wanted to be involved was, you know, I was really starting my career at Northrop of trying to get into leadership. And I saw the program as an opportunity of really being around other people and other experiences outside of my company to get more leadership, knowledge and experiences, hear how other people are doing things. And knowing that UMBC is such a diverse campus, I knew that I was going to meet all kinds of people that were going to be off and doing different things. I mean, when I look at my ei L class, you know, one of my classmates was designing machines to automate the manufacturing of pool sticks. A couple of them have gone off and build tech companies. I know one of my employees, you know, she was a exchange student from India, she was building a kind of ecosystem to reuse waste from her parents farm in India. And those are the types of things that you get in a program like this, you don't hear about those things and meet those types of people unless you're going to be throwing yourself into this environment.
Dennise Cardona 9:36
Yeah, that's a really powerful, rich learning environment to be able to be around people who are doing their due words, they're doing what's out there in the world. And you're able to learn from each other and see the world through a different lens to it, which I think is really important. Especially innovation. It's very creative. It can be very creative. And if you're just looking at it through the same tunnel, the same the same process spective all the time, it's really hard to see the outliers and to see what the other opportunities are that are present. And for my experience in graduate school, that that's Same exact thing. It's being around people who are doing vastly different things and what you are doing, and hearing, they're hearing their issues, their troubles, the challenges that their organizations are facing, and also hearing about their triumphs and everything that they the things that have worked and the opportunities that have presented, were presented to them from those challenges. That's really where the learning is so rich, so dynamic. And you're right, like, you would never get that, from reading a book, just reading a book by on its own. It's in that interaction with peers and faculty too, because I know, a UMBC the instructors are industry practitioners, which that in and of itself is a huge benefit to students. Because you're you're not learning from somebody who's preaching from a book, you're learning from somebody who's out there, nine to five, nine to six, or whatever the hours doing that kind of work, and you're learning from their mistakes and the lessons they learned. It's such a powerful, like recipe. It's reciprocity at its best, really.
Stephen Sauser 11:14
Yeah, absolutely agree.
Dennise Cardona 11:17
Now, in terms of the program itself, and some of the things that you learned in the program, what would you say, were the biggest learning opportunities that that you've received from the program in terms of how you were able to go to work the next day and apply it to what you were currently doing, whether any of those kind of opportunities where you learned something on Tuesday, and you went to work on Wednesday, and you were able to apply it?
Stephen Sauser 11:45
Yeah, I would say every single class, I walked in to work the next day, and was applying something that I learned from the night before. I think one of my biggest takeaways, which was kind of a common theme throughout the entire program was the program, and different parts of it teach you a lot about your style, as a leader and your style as either an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur. And it's very good to understand yourself, and where you fit into the picture into whatever work environment you're in. And then the program teaches you about all the other personalities of individuals within an organization. And once you kind of start to draw that connection of how you operate, how you lead, how you listen to people, and how you work with other people. And you start to understand all these other people's personalities, you start seeing where you can build strength in relationships, where you might have to be cautious in relationships and how you approach people, how you pass them information might need to be different. And that was one of the key things that I took away from being in that class, not only just from the content that the professors were giving, but the fact that my classroom was diverse. We all took our MBTI personality tests in class. So everyone found out you know what they were, and, you know, I was an EMT, J and there weren't any others in the class. But learning the personalities of all my other classmates, right? It's like, oh, that's how they react to things. And that's how they perceive information. And that's how they want to be understood. Right? When you start to focus on people, which is what this program teaches you a lot about, right? That's when you really start to understand leadership, because leadership is not about your title, or about how much money you're going to make for yourself or the company. A leadership is about how you are influencing others, either at your level and above, and also guiding those below you to bring them up. And this entire program, really just, it didn't matter what class whether it was project management, or our entrepreneurial mindset class, or our business ethics class. You know, it all ended up connecting towards how you're working with people, and how you present yourself and how you lead. You know, whether you're leading a small team or a big team. That was probably the biggest takeaway for me was being able to go back to work the next day. Because within my role, I've I interface with various levels of leadership across my company, and it could be a vice president, or it could be someone right out of college. You know, I have to know how I push information, how I coach, how I act in a room and this entire program was just really great for me to understand different personalities, and, you know, the leadership side of it Right, the innovation piece in those classes and you know, my intrapreneurship classes, were really good for refining specific skills that I needed to be successful. But if you can't lead, and you don't understand the values of leadership, you know, if you want to be a leader, right, having those skills is not going to do it all for you. You have to understand how to navigate people, and how to present yourself and how to be professional. And this program was monumental for me in, in getting me on the right path, and it's a continual journey. I think that's the one thing that you know, I see with some of my peers or other people, right, getting into leadership is not the end all be all. Right? You don't know it all, when you get that title of manager or director or vice president. Right? It's a constant journey of learning who you are as a leader, adapting your style and continuing to grow it. And if I didn't take this program, you know, I probably wouldn't have registered that when I became a leader.
Dennise Cardona 16:07
Hmm, that is really powerful. What you just said, yeah. What would you say to somebody, a prospective student who is on the fence, not sure if the program is worth the investment, the commitment of time? What would you say to that person?
Unknown Speaker 16:24
For me, I'm not going to talk about all the personal success that I've had since this program, I've had a ton of it. And a lot of it is due to this program. But there's plenty of master's degrees out there. Right? Whether you go online in class, right. And when I've gotten into the business world, I've worked at a couple different companies now. Right? Everybody wants that comma MBA after their name, say that they got their MBA. Right. And that's great. You know, it's a tough thing. It's a great achievement, right. But I don't know how many jobs out there in the world are using college algebra, to actually do the work that they're doing at their job. And this program, every single class that we had, and everything that we learn is applicable in any environment in the workplace. And that's why I would tell someone to take this program, because it doesn't matter. Right? I was the only I think there was one other person in my program class, we had about 20, or 30 people in my, like, I was part of the inaugural class of EIL, right. And there was about 20-30 of us, only two of us were in the intrapreneurship track, everyone else was an entrepreneur. Right? And of all of those entrepreneurs, not one of them was starting the same business as another. Right? They're all going down completely different paths. Right? One of our guys owned a cupcake shop in Northern Virginia, like in Arlington area, DC area, right. And, you know, his business model and everything he was trying to do for that. I mean, it's just fascinating hearing that stuff. When, you know, I'm going, you know, waking up in the morning and putting on my dress clothes and driving down to North Providence facility. Right and seeing the same people every day. I mean, he's trying to build a cupcake business. Right. And, you know, that's the thing that you will get from this program is such a diverse understanding of how people just attack their business and how people want to be successful. Right? Everyone was going about it a different way. Right, from strategies that we learned in class or for different motivations, right, and you learn so much more about yourself when you learn about other people. And, you know, that is, that was my biggest takeaway from this program, you know, I'm not, and I'm sure if you talk to my classmates, I'm not a very social person in school, right? I like to sit and take things in and listen, right. And maybe sometimes it doesn't come off that I'm, you know, taking it all in from them. But I sat in this program for about two and a half years, and just observe what everyone was doing, where they were going with their businesses, the strategies they were taking, right. And I was observing it so that I understood how I could tweak what I needed to do in my career. And that was instrumental for me, I mean, other than what was taught, you know, just listening to my classmates and seeing what they were doing was was huge, right? And that is more valuable to me than sitting down and doing an algebraic equation that I'm never going to apply in my job.
Dennise Cardona 19:46
That is so true. Absolutely true. You what you're learning in the classroom is something that you can bring directly to what you are doing day in and day out, and to be able to affect really important change in the stuff that you're doing. that it's a golden nugget of graduate school. That's the purpose is to be able to learn from people doing things, and sharing that excitement, in that knowledge, gaining that knowledge together and then going out there and creating opportunities in your workforce, in your own business. Whatever the pathway may be. Steven, this has been a really great conversation. I'm so grateful that you were here with us today to share that experience that you've had with UMBC entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership graduate program. Thank you so much for being here.
Stephen Sauser 20:32
Thank you for having me.
Dennise Cardona 20:34
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of UMBC Mic'd Up podcast. We hope that you enjoyed it. If you'd like to learn more about UMBC his graduate programs in entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership, please visit us at eil.umbc.edu.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai