“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” – Mark Twain
His suitcase is worn. It’s been stuffed in car trunks, rolled through airport terminals, thrown on hotel beds. He’s put miles on his car and stamps in his passport. Why? Because he knows that creating a better life for others means leaving footprints all over the globe.
Michael Madej, B.B.A.’04, hasn’t taken the traditional route of a business student. Graduating with a sales and business marketing degree, Madej traded an air-conditioned office for a hot climate, volunteering in East Africa for the Peace Corps. Living on the equator in coastal Kenya, he took what he learned in the Haworth College of Business and traveled 8,000 miles away to work with farmers in improving the distribution, marking and sales of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes in Mombasa.
“I did not grow up in Kenya, and I did not know anything about farming,” shares Madej. “But there was one thing I did know and that was how to develop a business plan. I was able to teach farming groups the intricacies of developing a business plan—everything from SWOT analysis to improving and projecting financials. It was because of the business college that I got into the Peace Corps, and it is the Peace Corps that has had the most significant impact on my career.”
As a returned Peace Corps volunteer, Madej headed back to the U.S. to pursue his master’s degree in urban and regional planning at the University of New Orleans, before working with organizations like the city of New Orleans and FEMA.
In 2013, Madej moved back to Michigan to work as a Detroit revitalization fellow. Selected from more than 450 applicants, Madej joined the two-year leadership program where he worked on projects across Detroit and the region. “The desire to make a positive impact on society stems from my travels,” says Madej. “I’ve experienced first-hand the importance of working with others who look, think and act differently than yourself to overcome hurdles and move our country in a positive direction.”
After his fellowship ended, Madej traded in his snow boots for cowboy boots and went down south to Dallas, joining the Peace Corps team once again as a regional recruiter. Combining his experience abroad with his background in sales, Madej now works with potential and current applicants to develop strong Peace Corps volunteers.
Through his experiences traveling the nation and abroad, Madej believes there are still major issues that need to be addressed in today’s business world. “An enormous challenge I see is how corporate leaders think about sustainability,” says Madej. “They must think beyond profit margins to incorporate sustainable fiscal, environmental, and employee and community health policies into the corporate structure. The ability to integrate a triple bottom line (financial, environmental, social) into a corporate culture takes time and determined leadership. It will be exciting to see how current and future business leaders can take today’s challenges and turn them into future assets.”