Graduating from college is likely a bittersweet experience as the prospect of an uncertain future can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. To help alleviate some of that post-graduate stress, find out what these Atlanta CEOs did right after earning their degrees. Hint: their climb to the top didn't happen over night.
John Stumpf – CEO of Wells Fargo
Stumpf grew up on a struggling family farm in Minnesota as one of 11 siblings. After graduation, he worked as a repossession man for cars, motorcycles, washers, dryers, TVs and chain saws in the Twin Cities metro area.
"That job was a great learning experience. I learned what it was like to make good loans because I collected on bad ones," said Stumpf, who went on to work loan and credit jobs at Northwest Bank, which later became part of Wells Fargo.
Teya Ryan – CEO of Georgia Public Broadcasting
Before climbing the ladder at CNN and becoming CEO of GPB, Ryan attended three colleges before graduating from the University of California at Berkeley. She got her first media job on a TV magazine show called “Eye on L.A.” because she would not take no for an answer. Prior to landing the job, she called twice a day for two weeks until she was able to reach an executive after the secretary left at night. Despite his initial rejections, she called three more times until he agreed to give her an assignment. Her advice: "If the front door is closed, go in the back door."
Ed Bastian – CEO of Delta Air Lines
Bastian grew up as the oldest of nine children in upstate New Yok. He graduated from St. Bonaventure University and became an auditor at Price Waterhouse, a large accounting firm, shortly after. He said the moment that propelled his career happened during his second year as an auditor by accident. After stumbling upon a set of analyses he could not quite understand, he eventually figured out it was a massive fraud – tens of millions of dollars in 1980. Though he was deposed for several days and various partners in the firm lost their jobs, he said he learned the importance of trusting his instincts because "you've got to be fearless with things that are important."
Keith Parker – CEO of MARTA
Parker graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia near his hometown with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He got his start as a student intern with the greater Richmond Transit Co., where he picked up coffee, dry cleaning and donuts. Opportunity struck when the deputy CEO asked if he knew how to do computer mapping, which he had no idea how to do. Nevertheless, he took on the assignment and worked all through the weekend to complete it. He went on to ask for more assignments and was eventually hired as director of planning at age 25 after getting his master’s degree in urban planning.
Hala Moddelmog – CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber
After her mother’s sudden death, Hala Moddelmog, then 17, was determined to be independent and learn how to take care of herself. "It was a real wake-up call," she remembered. So she paid for her undergraduate degree at Georgia Southern and then went on to graduate school at the University of Georgia. She became a sales analyst at Arby’s after graduating, and was quickly promoted to a manager’s position. She left after a few years to take a marketing job at a small company in Tuscon but eventually returned to Atlanta.
Rick O’Dell – CEO of Saia
O'Dell graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in accounting. He worked on his uncle's farm six days a week to pay for school, and was determined to leave his rural community post-graduation. "I could have gone out there to the farm. But I couldn't bring myself to go to a little, rural environment where everyone knew everyone's business," he said. He landed a job as an auditor at an accounting firm for a couple of years, but had his eyes set on business. After two years he went on to work at Yellow Freight as a treasury analyst and has continued in the trucking business ever since.
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