PROFILE: Co-op Has Willis' Long Road to Success off to Fast Start

As a co-op student, it doesn’t necessarily sound like the best idea to get one of your company’s senior executives on the run at your behest. As it turns out, though, it’s just one more indication of the high quality co-op experience being gained by UC’s Joel Willis this summer at Cinergy Corp.

Entering his final year in the College of Applied Science’s information technology program, Willis has spent the summer quarter in a co-op stint working in Cinergy’s information technology department. He has found plenty of opportunity for professionally rewarding challenges, he says. Some of them he has created for himself.

That was the case in getting his colleagues on the run. Willis knew of a Cinergy employee who had just received her third organ transplant. With the Flying Pig Marathon coming up, he thought it presented an opportunity to thank the National Kidney Foundation by organizing Cinergy employees to run in the race as a fund-raiser.

The end result included two four-person relay teams from Cinergy running in the race, and $1,500 in pledges raised.

Among those running a leg of the race was Cinergy Chief Information Officer Bennett Gaines.

"This opportunity allowed me to support a great cause, and work directly with a vice president and CIO of one of the most important companies in Cincinnati," says Willis.

And that, he knows, is not part of the typical experience of most college students.

"I was rewarded for my own initiative. Being involved with the marathon has really opened up a lot of doors," Willis says. "I’ve gotten recognition from senior management because of that, and it’s given me the chance to work on other high-profile projects."

For instance, he recently joined a project team made up of several managers within the company, as well as high-level representatives from a variety of global IT vendors. Willis is the only one on the team who is not a manager.

Willis -- who grew up in Hamilton, Ohio – came to UC as an architecture major and a Cincinnatus scholar. He used his artistic skills to design the T-shirts that the Cinergy teams wore in the marathon.

He also employed his IT skills. He developed a Web site that allowed Cinergy employees to purchase "squares" predicting the finishing time of each participating team. He also put together bulk e-mails, newsletter articles, PowerPoint presentations and displays on Cinergy’s internal IT news network.

And, as proof that he was willing to go the extra mile, Willis ended up running one of the seven-mile legs of the race when one team participant had to withdraw with an injury.

"The marathon was the farthest I’ve ever run," Willis says. "I hadn’t even trained."

But, he knows, the same can not be said now for the head start he has obtained on his career plans through co-op.

"I feel strongly that in today’s workplace you can’t just rely on technical knowledge," he says. "I’m often amazed when I talk to people who have earned their undergraduate degrees and they haven’t ever worked in their field. They’ll tell me they are not even 100 percent positive that (their field of training) is what they want to do, because they’ve never had this kind of opportunity where they could apply their academic knowledge in a real-world setting."