Mentoring may not be part of the official job description for Shawn Tilger ’94, but it’s high on his personal agenda. As senior vice president of business operations for the Philadelphia Flyers/ Comcast-Spectacor, Tilger helps Lafayette graduates launch their careers.
Courtney Dixon ’08, ESPN Manager, Sports Management—who completed an externship with Tilger during her senior year—was hired immediately after graduation by ESPN’s digital marketing department. Dixon, a mathematics graduate, says the externship helped her “make a decision between pursuing a career in finance or sports.”
“We would like the students to take away a better understanding of how a professional sports and entertainment organization works,” says Tilger, a government and law graduate with a master’s in sports management from Springfield College. “Many facets have to work together to put the product on the ice. We have them spend each day in a different department within our business model and hopefully when they watch the next game, all that they have seen throughout the week makes more sense.”
In January, Tilger hosted Chris Rodrigues ’14 (government and law/ history), Brandon Turner ’14 (economics), Sara Sproul ’13 (economics/ art), and Adam Lucosky ’13 (anthropology and sociology).
“He emphasized the importance of doing something that makes you happy,” says Sproul, who aspired to a career in marketing research and is now a research analyst for a global pharmaceutical market research company in Clarks Summit, Pa. “Although this idea is simple, I found it to be incredibly honest and inspiring coming from such a successful businessman.”