Dennis Ward

How did you pick your career? Did you know all along?

I started rough, college was a blast but could get stressful when I missed to many classes and had to study all night for the final exam - I learned to speed read but still miss alot of information. I am lucky because I love testing. I am a good test taker - poor student but I can cram all night and ace a final and forget everything in a week. Good and bad I guess. I transferred to Cal State Univ., Fullerton after my sophmore year to get a special degree in Advertising. Took the first test and was the only grade of 100 out of over 1000 students in my field. NEVER GOT A JOB IN ADVERTISING, even did an internship my senior year and was offerred FT on graduation, nope. I applied and was accepted to Law school. That was the end of school, never looked back; never went to Law school. I wrote a letter to one of the most prominent advertising leaders in the country and actually received a response from J. Walter Thompson himself. "Get 2 years sales experience, Xerox, IBM, sell new cars, it doesn't really matter" he said. So here we go, 3 offers - Transamerica Financial , Orkin and Frito Lay. All ground floor gopher jobs - chose Transamerica and looked back 17 years later with a solid career in commercial finance. Go figure, always hated numbers; only D in college was business math 101. barely C- in Economics and yet excelled in Finance. You never know - GOOD LUCK out there!!

What is the one piece of career advice you wish someone gave you when you were younger?

Good question, the advice was given to me, I did not know it. My father was a self made man. Without college, married at 16, first kid at 16, still tease my brother; my father learned to manage the build of physical mobile home plants for Skyline #1 then in the Industry. Pretty hard guy with language and just a hothead - f this, f that - don't care how just tell me when done. We all know the type. 6 months out of college, I meet him at an airport for a drink when he scheduled a 2 hour lay-over. Pops was in 2 weeks/out 2 weeks my entire childhood. 5 minutes into the conversation I didn't realize I was whinning about my new job at Transamerica; I hate the pressure every month-end, boss is a bully, missed a jacuzzi party, have to work late all the time to call strangers and offer business loans, etc. He slammed his drink on the table, stopped me in mid-sentence and called me some names I thought were reserved for the lowest pond scum in the world and ended by shouting "HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO ACT 16 F-ing YEARS OLD. QUIT, MOVE DO SOMETHING but shut the F up AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Took me a couple of weeks feeling sorry for myself but he also said move out of the way cause I guarentee someone wants that job and will obviously be better at it than a pu__y like you. GROW UP. Changed my life changed my attitude and I rocked that career 17 years not 1x letting up. 800 branches, I ran the largest until I was promoted to District then Regional vp. Awarded manager of the year - never figured out why until much later in life. BEST ADVICE but i still do not recommend - I was horrified, lol