When Lord Walker graduated from CU-Boulder in 2009, he was eager to find a career in international affairs. A former engineering student who was drawn to global events, he knew he needed a place to start. Walker found his chance with a temporary ten-day job at the World Bank.
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| Lord Walker, IAFS alum '09 |
The job wasn’t what he had initially planned: he was tasked with shredding confidential documents for the World Bank. Even so, Walker showed up in a suit every day, determined to make his mark. He says, “I wanted them to know I took the opportunity seriously and I would be there regardless of the task. I must have been good at it, because when the ten days were up, they asked me to shred more paper.”
His World Bank shredding skills opened doors in other departments, and eventually landed a one-year position working with the Latin America and Caribbean Region as an Extended Term Temporary Operations Assistant. Currently, he is responsible for international sales and serves as Global Loadout Sales Manager at Kanawha Scales & Systems, Inc. in West Virginia.
Walker first learned about perseverance as a CU-Boulder undergraduate in the Program in International Affairs: eager to go overseas, he planned a trip to Asia and Europe during the summer of his junior year. As much as the historical and cultural landmarks, Walker remembers the challenging situations where he had to get uncomfortable in unfamiliar surroundings: getting lost, not knowing the languages, and finding himself far from his original itinerary. Walker’s advice for recent IAFS alums: “Be steadfast when you do something, and commit. See the world, persevere in uncomfortable situations, and be bold!”Walker used that same perseverance later when he completed his Master of Business Administration (MBA) at West Virginia University, something he never would have imagined years before. Walker recalls, “I wasn’t a high GPA student at CU-Boulder, but I didn’t let that hold me back and I became the class president of my MBA graduating class.”