Current Wilkes students will tell you that they chose the University for a variety of reasons: great academic programs, a beautiful campus, supportive faculty and more. Another reason might have been the student success stories they read about in the admissions viewbook they received while choosing a college.
The young alumni who touted the value of their Wilkes education in that publication were just embarking on their careers. Three years later, they affirm that the University helped give them the tools they needed to excel in their professional lives.
Wilkes caught up with them to learn what they’ve been up to in the workplace and professional school. Each reflected on the ways that their education continues to impact their work life.
Danny Devito ’20: From Wilkes to FOX to Amazon
Danny Devito says he used lessons he learned from faculty in Wilkes’ digital design and media art program every time he presented his design work to executives during the six years he worked at FOX Sports.
“I think what I took most from the years (at Wilkes) was how to present my work and how to talk about what I made and why it works,” Devito says. “I think that goes back directly to Eric (Ruggiero), Lisa (Reynolds), and Steve (Husted) teaching us how to present our work and how to own your presence in a room.”
Now Devito is taking those lessons with him in his new position as an art director for Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios in Los Angeles. Devito joined Amazon in August. While at FOX, he led the digital design team through events like the FIFA World Cup, the Super Bowl, and the World Series. In his new role, his focus is building Prime Video’s sports broadcasting brand.
One of his first projects is a redesign of the artwork for Thursday Night Football that will be featured on the streaming platform. He also is designing grocery bags promoting Prime’s Black Friday football game that will be used at Whole Foods grocery stores throughout the country. “It couldn’t be more different than what I did at FOX,’’ he says.
Devito chose Wilkes because he wanted to return home to Wilkes-Barre after attending high school in Maryland and to attend a smaller school. He liked the way the digital design and media arts program allowed students to pursue their own interests in addition to required courses. “You can become any form of a creative that you want to through the multiple courses they have. You’re not just forced into an art and design track,” he says, noting that his education helped prepare him for the industry’s current emphasis on content creation and owning multiple skillsets with the rise of AI.
Wilkes’ program encouraged him to define himself as a creative rather pigeonholing him as graphic designer. “I think especially with the way technology is shifting right now…the creative field is going to get flattened out a little bit, and people will just be known as creatives.”
Devito intentionally sought professional experience while he was a student. With the goal of accumulating a portfolio of real-world work on his website rather than featuring examples from class assignments, he stacked up a series of internships and freelance work. He interned for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs minor league baseball team, with the Bronx Pinstripes, Wilkes Athletics Department and the Washington Nationals. Freelance work designing for EA Sports, NBA 2K, and the Seattle Seahawks built a robust portfolio that eventually helped him earn a job at FOX Sports as he was graduating.
After working 17-hour days for two months during his third FIFA World Cup at FOX, he is welcoming a more normal schedule at his new job while at the same time tackling bigger challenges. “I’m really looking forward to….building a brand at a bigger scale,” Devito says.
Mel Fouts ’23: Applying Lessons Learned at Wilkes
If you had asked Mel Fouts ’23 about her career plans when she entered Wilkes, she wouldn’t have listed her current job as a project delivery engineer for Pennsylvania American Water.
“The 18-year-old who went into Wilkes is so different than the…22-year-old who came out on the other side,” Fouts says. “I had a lot of great mentors in the Honors program and my research advisors. I learned so much. I learned a lot about myself. I went into Wilkes thinking I wanted to…be a professor myself….But then, through my experiences at Wilkes, I was able to figure out that wasn’t what I wanted to do.”
Fouts, who earned an ABET-accredited environmental engineering degree, is part of a team responsible for the utility’s million-dollar capital infrastructure projects. The projects include all aspects of a system delivering water to consumers – including water mains, surface water, groundwater and wastewater treatment facilities. Her team’s service territory in the northeast sector of Pennsylvania extends from Nanticoke to the Wyoming Valley and Carbondale through the Poconos and the Delaware Water Gap. When someone turns on the faucet in that region, it’s likely the water is supplied by Pennsylvania American Water.
Fouts’ team takes projects from concept to completion. Projects may answer a change in regulation, a need to implement a new form of treatment, or resolve an operational issue. “We take the problem and we scope the design of it. We’ll typically bring a consultant on board to work through the design and the permitting process. That can take anywhere from one to two years, depending on how big and involved the project is,” she explains. “Then we see it through construction, working through field changes with the contractor. Construction takes another two years or more.”
Her Wilkes classes prepared her well, she says, providing problem-solving lessons beyond books.
“More than the course content, it’s the thought process that you learn from the faculty. It’s teaching you the patience. It teaches you what kinds of questions to ask,” Fouts says. “I think resilience is what you learn. The courses are tough, but they teach you to keep going. How that translates to the job is that…if we have to pivot (on a project), it’s okay. There’s still a path forward: it might just not be what we thought it was.”
When it comes to career goals, earning her Professional Engineer (PE) license tops the list. To earn the credential, Fouts must complete four years on the job and pass the licensing exam. With it will come more opportunities for advancement.
“I’ve learned a lot in three years. But I definitely have much more to learn,” she says.
Nick Kinzler BS ’23 MBA ’24: A Team Player in the Workplace
When Nick Kinzler BS ’23 MBA ’24 talked about his team at Wilkes, he was speaking about soccer and playing goalie for the Colonels. Since graduating, his references to a team are about the professionals he works with as a corporate financial analyst at Northwell Health.
“I have a good manager and a good team,” he says of his post-college career. “It’s been smooth sailing.”
Kinzler took a slightly different career path than what you might expect after graduating with a degree in finance and a minor in accounting from the AACSB-accredited Sidhu School of Business and Leadership. Instead of heading for Wall Street or a job in the financial sector, he chose to apply his skills in the health-care industry.
“I don’t think I would have the same knowledge and confidence or have even been able to get a job without the fundamentals of the business school,” says Kinzler, whose office is based on Long Island.
Northwell Health is New York state’s largest healthcare provider, with 28 hospitals, plus physicians’ offices, urgent care centers and other clinical facilities spanning New York and Connecticut. Kinzler says there was a learning curve as he became acquainted with health-care terminology and the nuances of the industry. Now, instead of tracking returns on the stock exchange, Kinzler is analyzing reports assessing drug use in hospital pharmacies and weighing reimbursement rates from health-care insurers.
He says his academic classes helped him to develop the financial skills needed to do the work. The Personal and Professional Development (PPD) classes required for Sidhu students, covering things like writing a resume, networking, and developing a LinkedIn profile, prepared him in a different way. “That was something that helped a lot of people get out of their comfort zones and become more familiar with life after college.”
One of his most formative experiences happened when he decided to take advantage of Wilkes’ 4+1 MBA program that enabled him to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in five years. Kinzler says working as a graduate assistant in the Wilkes President’s Office was meaningful. “It was my first part-time work that wasn’t finance-related or business-related,” he says. In that role, he says he developed interpersonal skills and had the opportunity to form relationships with senior administration. “It made me more well-rounded,” he says.
As a student athlete, he developed a work ethic and time management skills that he brings into the workplace. “That’s something that helped prepare me as I moved into professional life when you have certain tasks or monthly reports or responsibilities,” he says.
He’s found that working at a large organization provides him with opportunities.
“I’m really happy with where I’m at Northwell, and I’m hoping to continue to grow there and move up within the organization and move up within my team,” Kinzler says. “I want to continue to make an impact and continue to build relationships and foster connections.”
Hera Mukhtar ’23: A Head Start on Medical School
In her fourth year at Penn State College of Medicine, Hera Mukhtar ’23 can clearly see how her Wilkes experience has shaped her time as a medical student.
“I feel like a lot of my passions as a medical student started developing as a student at Wilkes,” says Mukhtar.
In addition to strong academic preparation in the sciences, the opportunity to work closely with Wilkes faculty on research had the most direct impact on her work in medical school. At Wilkes she worked with Emeritus Professor of Biology William Terzaghi on bioengineering research and did more research during a clinical internship at Guthrie Hospital. While there, she examined how social determinants of health – including factors like income, economics, education, and housing — impact screening rates for breast cancer.
“Coming into medical school, I already had a strong foundation of how to develop a scientific question and understanding how I go about learning more,” she says, adding that working closely with Wilkes faculty gave her confidence to approach her medical school professors with ideas. Her Guthrie internship exposed her to many medical specialties, giving her a head start on medical school third-year clinical rotations. At the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, her research continues, focusing on older adults with Alzheimer’s disease. “I’m seeing if there are any trends in prescribing patterns amongst medications used to manage behavioral symptoms seen in Alzheimer’s disease. I came up with the idea after coming across this very problem on my rotations.”
In addition to citing academic and research experiences at Wilkes impacting her medical school career, Mukhtar also praises the value of undergraduate extracurricular activities. Citing her time as an e-Mentor and her involvement in Wilkes Adventure Education (WAE), she says both taught her how to better work with people. “I really got to hone my leadership and facilitation skills,” she says, adding that those skills are valuable when working with patients and their families or other healthcare providers.
Serving as president of Wilkes’ We’re Empowered by Science (WEBS), which encourages middle schoolers’ interest in science – set the stage for volunteering at Penn State. Mukhtar works in the PULSE program, which acquaints high school students with careers in medicine, and also volunteers with Science of Surgery Summer Camp, which educates high school students from underrepresented populations about careers in medicine and surgery. Her most significant volunteer project centers on launching a program at the Milton Hershey School, a private school which covers all costs for students regardless of need. “I’ve been working on developing a program to bring middle schoolers to the medical center to interact with both medical students and grad students about different careers in medicine,” Mukhtar explains.
Now in her fourth year of medical school, Mukhtar is applying for internal medicine residencies with plans to specialize in primary care or geriatrics. Wilkes, she says, played a role in getting her there. “Everyone was always so invested in student success at Wilkes, and that really like set me up to do a lot once I got to medical school.”