28 LEHIGH BUSINESS MAGAZINE LEHIGH STUDENT STORIES Friedman says pitching to a real business was exhilarating. “Your client team is sitting right in front of you,” she says. “Watching their reaction, seeing them nod their head and smiling, it gives you more adrenaline.” Thompson’s group produced a video designed to appeal to young people looking for their first guitar and also created key performance indicators for tracking the campaign’s success. A guitar player herself, Thompson was among the students who took a tour of the Martin Guitar factory in nearby Nazareth, Pennsylvania. “I was geeking out,” she recalls. Students recommended highlighting Martin’s commitment to sustainability and increasing the company’s activities at Musikfest, such as a Build-Your-Own Guitar workshop and opportunities for people to audition to play at the Martin Guitar Lyrikplatz. Mike Nelson, vice president of marketing for C.F. Martin & Co, was impressed. “Absolutely we can use some of those ideas,” Nelson says. “They really thought it through to offer those specifics.” Four other teams of students presented their plans to HangDog Outdoor Adventures owner Mike McCreary ’07, who also owns Lehigh Valley Grand Prix. McCreary plans to launch HangDog in the Easton area as a four-story adventure ropes course with ziplines, food, a craft beer garden and live music. McCreary loved the students’ suggested hashtag #ComeHangWithUs and the idea of having a college night in the early fall or late spring geared toward offering discounted admission to local students. He was also interested in tips on attracting local social media influencers who would then post videos and photos of their HangDog experiences on sites like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and TikTok. “Putting more emphasis on influencers is something I hadn’t thought about much,” McCreary says. “I love that idea.” Colin McMahon’s group pitched the college night plan. “This company and this project allowed us a lot of freedom to use our creativity,” McMahon ’23, said. “Being able to work with a hands-on project that was applied to the real world and work directly with the company was incredibly insightful.” That’s music to the ears of Deirdre Trabert Malacrea, professor of practice in marketing and a former Pepsi marketer, who teaches the digital and social media classes and recruits businesses. “We really want to promote career readiness for our marketing students by giving them real world experiences,” she says. “I’ve had students tell me that working on this project during their marketing career at Lehigh helped them actually secure their jobs. Talking about their project experience gave them something relatable to discuss with a potential employer. “They learn how to be accountable to their teammates and to an outcome. They get to hear the inner workings between professionals. The next time they create a marketing campaign won’t be their first rodeo.” Understanding Finance through History Kyle Nisbet ’25 loves learning with a historical perspective. BY LAYLA WARSHAW CHRISTA NEU ROB GERTH History is driven by financial decisions,” says Kyle Nisbet ’25 from Wilmington, DE. “From taxes that cause revolutionary wars to the stories of robber barons and the rise of banks in Europe, history intertwines with the present day and I’ve always been fascinated by that.” As a kid, Nisbet, whose major is in finance, with a minor in history, resold bags of chips and lemonade at tennis tournaments with his siblings. “I’d make $10 or $15 for the day, and it was the best $15 I’d ever make. I spent whole days just doing that,” Nisbet says. But as he grew older, he says he started considering where his money should go. In a bank? In investments? And how would he know where to invest it? Close to a decade later, Nisbet is still considering his financial future. Learning is everything to Nisbet. When given free time, he finds himself deep in research. Periodically, he publishes his own financial reports. “I’ve enjoyed my whole journey in my life and at Lehigh, especially all my study of the interaction of history and finance, from spending weeks analyzing a company to seeing how a random legal case affects the financial markets.” At Lehigh, Nisbet lets curiosity and passion guide him. He’s the president of the Investment Management Group, which invests real money for Lehigh. He’s worked in investment, portfolio management and private credit. Nisbet says he hopes to continue fostering connections that will bring his education, and eventually his career, to greater heights. “ HangDog Outdoor Adventures owner Mike McCreary ’07 (center), marketing Professor of Practice, Deirdre Trabert Malacrea (far left) and her class.
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