‘You will fail, and that’s OK. Fail at everything’

Five questions about study, life and work

Dante Treglio, who earned his BA in economics from CU-Boulder in 2004, is manager of off premise channel and customer development at Heineken USA. In this frank exchange, he responded to five questions from us:

1. When did you first know that the career you now have was right for you?

That’s a tough question and long-winded one but I’ll try to answer it the best way I can. I guess I should start off from the beginning of my college career.

For the longest time growing up, I had a fondness for the sciences, specifically engineering and mathematics. When I came into CU, that was the area I wanted to concentrate on and so took a series of courses geared towards engineering students (Calc 3 for engineers, physics for engineers, and computer science for engineering—I wanted to be an electrical and computer engineer major).

The whole point is to convey that there wasn’t really an “Ah-Ha!” moment for my career. For me it was a series of “Ah-ha’s!” following a series of failures, self-discovery, trials and rethinking. I also had to change my attitude and get out of my comfort zone to do the thing I am doing today."Unfortunately, my concentration on engineering was my folly as a freshman. I remember a conversation with my older brother who was still at CU at the time. He warned me about concentrating on a major straight into college and should work on my generalized studies, similar to what other students were doing. I was under the impression from my parents that this was the wrong thing to do and should concentrate on my major, because it’s what they did when they went to college. So I listened to my parents and came to realize how wrong they were. I’m not saying that all parents are wrong about everything, but because my parents hadn’t gone to college in over 20 years, they had no idea what it was like. Their frame of reference was off.

As a result, I failed spectacularly. I failed physics and calc 3, got a D in computer science, but my saving grace was a political-science class, in which I received a passing grade of C. I was devastated. I just had finished my first semester of college with a 0.8 GPA. That’s right, a 0.8 GPA. I remember one night logging onto my parent’s computer and seeing my semester grades. I bawled my eyes out to my older brother. He just shook his head and said, “You need to talk to mom about this.”

My mom was a high-school math teacher and had very high expectations of my older brothers and me; and my dad, a nuclear physicist. Failing in engineering and mathematics wasn’t an option. But I had failed both. I freaked out what my parents were going to say/do. I freaked out because I thought it was the end of my life. After stewing and freaking out all winter break, I finally decided to tell my mom the week before I left back to college.

My mom calmly sat with me while I cried and said, “Well, you have one more semester under your belt to improve your grades. Figure out what you want to do. If you can’t succeed in college, maybe it isn’t for you and you should come home and attend community college.” To my family, community college wasn’t a viable option. I grew up believing that community college is meant for slackers and those who couldn’t make it into a university. I didn’t learn till much later that community college is actually a good way to get into university.

When you fail and you fail as spectacularly as I did, several things can happen to you and they usually happen to you either all at once or randomly in the coming days. I felt like I let my parents down, my entire family down, and I let myself down. But realization came on me when I came back to CU for the spring semester. Maybe I should take my brother’s advice and just do nothing but general freshman-level courses and figure out my life from there; especially since I was now on academic probation.

And it worked spectacularly. As badly as I had failed the previous semester, I killed it in the spring. My GPA for freshman year second semester was a 3.4, and every semester after that first one, I managed to maintain my GPA above a 3.0, in some instances getting on the Dean’s List twice. I know that CU offered, might even still offer, course forgiveness, but as much as that would have improved my GPA, I just couldn’t do it.

By my sophomore year, I realized I needed to start thinking about my major. I took a series of courses and had heard about economics. I figured why not and took the class. The first semester was microeconomics, and I didn’t do too great in the class but I wanted to keep pursuing it, mostly because it fulfilled a requirement. By second semester of sophomore year, I had found two majors I wanted to go into. One was classics and the other was economics. I loved classics for the simple fact that it was all about Greek and Roman history, which I was vastly into. Economics I enjoyed because it involved math, but wasn’t nearly as rigorous as engineering.

That summer, I had a conversation with my dad about which to choose. He told me that going into classics, while it’s a great major, doesn’t make you money. It’s not a glorified field and you’ll be begging for grant money your entire life. I think that was the one time I felt my parent’s advice, specifically throughout my college career, was actually very viable. By junior year, I had decided I wanted to do a major in economics with a minor in classics. When I had to take statistics for economics, my first real mathematics class since my big debacle with engineering, I was scared. But my fears were unwarranted as I soon discovered, “Hey, I actually like statistics; I get it.”

Now as I had talked with people in that class, there were a few who struggled but there were others who did well. And some of them had taken another type of statistics course called econometrics. For those of you reading this that are or were econ majors, you’re probably groaning. Econometrics was and probably still is known as one of the hardest economics courses you could ever take. It combines algebra and statistics together, and in some cases calculus and linear algebra (more at the theoretical level).

One of my friends had warned me about the course. He kept telling me how ridiculously hard it was and that the class was so graded on a curve that the average A was probably around D level. But there was a classmate of mine I had been talking to who had taken an econometrics course with Professor Robert McNown. He told that this professor didn’t use theory so much as he used more realistic examples of econometrics and statistical modeling. I was sold. A class on programming and statistics! I was ecstatic.

I immediately applied to the course and eagerly waited for the class to start. It was by far my most favorite class out of my entire college career. I loved everything about it. I even tried to get a job with the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to use my newly found knowledge to kick-start a career. It was taking that class that I knew what I wanted to do in life. It became the basis of my graduate studies and led me into the career that I have today. But I didn’t realize this till much later.

The summer I graduated college (2004), both government institutions had different ideas about me. I got neither job. I was devastated. My parents, being loving parents that they are, wanted me to get a job, any job. It didn’t matter as long as I was making money. So I bit the bullet and started working at Blockbuster. You remember Blockbuster, the video rental retail company that went belly up? Yeah, that company. I started out as a lowly CSR or customer service representative and hated every minute of it. I felt like I was cheated out of my bachelor’s degree; that I had wasted my parent’s money (again) and felt shame. I found out later that I was part of the first set of millennial graduates to find out that getting a bachelor’s degree doesn’t equal job; that having no experience was career suicide before you even stepped out of college. No company wanted to hire me or even think of interviewing me. I even applied to sales jobs, but I just didn’t have the skillset they wanted, the drive they desired or the experience. I was literally doing the same job that my best friend had with no college degree or experience. Some of you out there are reading this and shaking your head, but it’s what I had to do to make ends meet at the time. But little did I realize, this experience would help me in my coming career.

After working at Blockbuster for a while, I decided that maybe I should go back to college and get my master’s. I looked at programs all over the U.S. and even called Professor McNown. What I had learned from that class he taught was that it was all applied econometric modeling and that if it was something that I liked, that I should pursue a master’s in. So I applied at San Diego State University. They have a great economics program that requires an internship (at this point I had absolutely no experience in the field). They concentrate on econometrics and microeconomics, mostly dealing with game theory and econometric modeling. I highly recommend it if you’re thinking of a career in econometric modeling. Through my internship experience plus my master’s, I landed a role at The Nielsen Company.

The Nielsen Company is where I really got my career started. I did Marketing Research for them, specifically working on Marketing Mix Models which uses panel data in a regression based analysis. For those of you who don’t know what that means, I measured the impact of marketing campaigns. Everything from TV, print, online, email blasts, in store promotions, etc. If you spent money on it, guaranteed it went into the model. In all honesty, I had no idea this career existed. Nobody ever told me about it. But it’s one of the most lucrative types of career you can get into that has tons of openings and lots of opportunity. There are plenty of companies out there that hire recent college graduates for this field. I thought I knew everything there is to know about Excel and PowerPoint, but that job humbled me. It was the most shocking and life altering experiences to this day. What I thought I knew about anything, I came to realize I knew nothing. I had to learn quickly otherwise I was out of a job. But it was this job that taught me the vast majority of skills that I have today to make me successful in my current career.

Market Research is what led me into my current career as a category manager. Category management is one of those specialty careers that nobody knows about (similar to market research) but has the greatest level of opportunities; so much so that universities are starting to offer majors in it. It’s tough to break into, but once you’re in, you’re in for the long haul. I think it took me two years before I could find a manufacturer that would hire me in this type of role. In all honesty, when I started doing it, I felt out of place. I felt like I was in over my head, overwhelmed and had no place in this industry. But with the guidance of my boss at that time, I learned a lot and turned out to love the role. It was that opportunity that lead me from electronics, to OTC pharmaceuticals, to my current role in beer. I have to say, beer is more fun to work in compared to other categories. If you are ever in the NYC area and happen to reach out to me; ask me the story about feminine-care products.

The whole point is to convey that there wasn’t really an “Ah-Ha!” moment for my career. For me it was a series of “Ah-ha’s!” following a series of failures, self-discovery, trials and rethinking. I also had to change my attitude and get out of my comfort zone to do the thing I am doing today. Sometimes your career will come out of nowhere and land on your lap; other times you have to work hard at it until you hit it; and sometimes its just pure dumb luck.

2. What notable obstacles did you overcome as you established your career?

In my entire story, there were plenty of obstacles. Failing college was one. Figuring out my major was another. Graduating college with no work experience was definitely a big one. Working retail and thinking your life is going nowhere fast. Going back to school and losing potential income earned. Figuring out what type of career you want. Working a dead-end job. Being told what you can and can’t do. The list goes on.

3. What advice would you have for students about how to make the most of their education?

Internships. By far the best way you can get your career started in college is to have that experience. It will get you in the door in a lot of places. That being said, don’t expect a high level, high-paying position. Know that you’re going to have to be at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder before you can climb up it. And for god sakes, if you can invent something or come up with a really great idea, run with it, because you never know where it will take you.

Besides experience, do what you love, starting with what interests you. Do a Google search of your interests with “job” or “career” at the end of your search. Chances are you’ll find something in your interests. However, if you don’t know what that is, go out and explore different classes. Get out of your comfort zone, the bubble your parents have strived to keep you in, and figure things out. You’re smart enough to get into college; you should be smart enough to figure your life out, and part of figuring that out is to branch out. Something as innocuous as watching Anime with your friends can spawn something new and different, and possibly launch you into a career you didn’t know existed.

4. What role did your studies at CU-Boulder have in your career success?

Huge role. It set the foundation of my knowledge that translated from academia to research to corporate culture. Companies don’t want people who are so specialized that they can’t learn anything new. My computer-science professor from freshman year told me anecdotes about how companies were hiring English majors and communications majors and teaching them to code. Companies want someone who is well-rounded, but has an elastic mind so that they can keep learning. At least good companies do. By learning those general studies and being able to bounce from subject to subject, it’s allowed me to learn how everything works in the real world and apply it.

5. What other observations would you like to share?

I have several favorite quotes, but two come to mind. “There is a time and place for everything, and it’s called College.” ~ Chef from South Park.

Also, “Don’t take life too seriously; you’ll never get out alive.” ~ Van Wilder from National Lampoon’s Van Wilder.

While both quotes are from comedies, they ring very true. They both tell me that you should have fun and explore life. This is your time to explore your life and your world, both in college and outside of it. Don’t worry about your career or money right now; that will come later. Let your career come to you as you do what you love; it might be now, tomorrow, 10 days from now, or even 10 years from now. If it means brewing beer and drinking it, there’s a career for that. I know plenty of craft breweries that are popping up all over the place and the barriers of entry are low. One thing that is so amazing about our society today is that our world has become so specialized that there are literally careers for everything. So keep an open mind about that. Take something that you find fun or interesting and see if there’s a job out there for it.

There are going to be times that you will fail, and it is OK. Fail at everything you do. Cry about it, cry on someone’s shoulder, throw things, get mad about it, and do whatever it is you do to get over it. But getting over your failures and learning from those failures is when you can succeed. Another favorite quote of mine: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein.

If and when you fail, change your approach. When you fail, do something different, do something else; do anything other than what you did that caused you to fail. And hey, you might succeed.

Also know that your career is a process and not a single point in your life. It evolves over time and changes as you change. If there’s a career that you specifically want, plan it out. But I’ll be honest, don’t plan too hard because life will get in the way. You need to have an idea of where you’re going, but you need room to improvise should the time arise. Also, LinkedIn should be your best friend right now. It’s how I got my last two roles.

A little side note: Getting my role at Heineken was by far the most grueling exercise I have ever run into. It was a mix of pure luck and a strong background. Want to know how to get into beer? Get into the manufacturing world, specifically beverages like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Both of those companies hire a lot of college grads and like to groom them. The work will be brutal, but you’ll learn a lot. If you can’t do either of those, have some other kind of consumer packaged goods background. Your skills at one manufacturer will be transferrable to another. Then it’s just a matter of finding the right opportunity and getting connected with the right people. It’s even better if you can get a recruiter to help you out.

Feb. 27, 2015