LA (not so) Confidential

I now live in LA, a city which I have visited 100+ times but that still mystifies me.

To be more specific, I live in Sherman Oaks. Sherman Oaks is one of the southernmost parts of the San Fernando Valley. I chose this location because I am:

• 30 minutes from work (no traffic in the morning or evening)
  
• 20 minutes from Santa Monica
• 20 minutes from Hollywood
• 45 minutes from Malibu
• 20 minutes from the Burbank airport

Basically if you mapped all of these places and found the midpoint, you would be staring at Sherman Oaks. Valencia, the city where I work, is actually quite picturesque. Boston Scientific, my employer, is located on a hill with great views of the canyons. It's windier at the office and one can often see wildlife like deer, hawks, etc. It reminds me a little of SAP's Palo Alto office.

Quick first impressions:

• People are in incredible shape
• The traffic is bad most of the time
• The surfing looks terrific
• The "going out" vibe is electric.
  

If you have any suggestions for things to do here, let me know!

The Last Refuge for Tigers

During my month of vacation before starting work, I engaged in one of my favorite past times: watching endless amounts of nature programs on National Geographic: Wild. Side note: Nat Geo Wild has become leaps and bounds better than Animal Planet.

I saw an amazing program on tigers. Not your average nature show covering tigers in the wild, this show featured several conservationists who went on an expedition to Bhutan's "Tiger Mountain" to look for tigers. It had been rumored by locals that tigers lived on this mountain. The explorers decided that if this rumor were true, then tigers could be relocated from their current territories to this remote region. In fact, a "tiger corridor" could be created throughout these high altitude Himalayan regions. Watching the show, this seemed like the best idea for ensuring the survival of the tigers that I have ever heard of.

Fortunately, tigers were found on Tiger Mountain and the tiger relocation project can now have legs. Working on the conversation of tigers in Bhutan is a strong candidate for how I spend my sabbatical (when that time comes).

8 months later

I was debating about ending this blog and focusing on my new one (Pivotal Trial), but I decided not to. I think there's room for a professional blog and a personal blog on my random musings. So let me take a minute to catch you up on my life.

After winning Cohort Cup, the following things happened:

-Surfed in the Dominican Republic for 1 week. Significantly improved my surfing.
-Interned at Medtronic in the Pulmonic group in marketing.
-Went on the Lebanon Trek. Had a blast.
-Finished my last semester at Wharton. Was pretty stressed most of the semester because of recruiting.
-Spent 3 weeks in India. Visited Bombay, Aurangabad, Nasik, Goa, and Bangalore.
-Started a new job at Boston Scientific. I'm a Product Manager managing Leads and Tools for the Spinal Cord Stimulator product. I'm in LA.

Great, so now you are all caught up. Stay tuned for more regular updates.

Champions of Cohort Cup

In a year of highlights, let's add another one to the list. My beloved cohort B - aka the Killer Bees - won the Cohort Cup. You might recall my earlier entry on Cohort Cup:

http://letter-of-marque.blogspot.com/2010/09/cohort-cup-dodgeball.html

Cohort B has been a stellar cohort all year long. We sealed the deal in the last event of the competition - cohort relays. This event consisted of a free throw contest (basketball), a speed eating contest, several running relays, and finally, a tug-of-war contest. Going into the day, Cohort B was 5 points ahead of Cohort I. At the end of the day, B and I tied for first in the day's events. Thus, Cohort B won the Cohort Cup by 5 points over Cohort I. We did this with almost no support from the second years, unfortunately.

That night, we took the cup to Atlantic City to party.

Winning Cohort Cup has given our cohort immense pride and is likely to keep us close in our 2nd year. Next year, I think a lot of 2nd year Bs will take part in the events with the first years.

Quantico

This year I participated in a Wharton Leadership venture known only as "Quantico". Participants spend 24 hours at a Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, where they spend a day-in-the-life of Officer Candidates School. I won't go too much into the details of Quantico, because it's meant to be unpredictable and a surprise to participants. I will say, however, I learned more about leadership at this event than anywhere else at Wharton.


One of the key leadership lessons was the 70% rule. When you have 70% of the information you need to make a decision - you make the decision. Now, this doesn't apply in all situations, but it is a good rule of thumb and a good way to encourage taking action rather than deliberating. Course corrections can usually be made. For decisions that can't be undone, if there's time, then it makes sense to take more time on the decision.


The second key leadership lesson was leading from the front. Marine leaders lead by example. This is related to the concept of a servant-leader, a concept that the marines embrace. Servant-leaders try to serve the people they lead.

After the training on the base - which was more grueling and tiring than I expected, we had a reception at the Marine Museum in Virginia. This was an awe-inspiring museum. Below you can see some of the most famous quotes uttered by marines.

I came away from Quantico with more respect for the marines (and all veterans), and a desire to adopt a more decisive leadership style. I also thought that if I were 21 again, 4-5 years in the military might have done me well and taught me some key skills that would serve me in the rest of my life. But, at least I have my Quantico experience - something that you can't pay money to get. Semper fi!

Think Big

This year, my team participated in and won second place in the Wharton Business Plan Competition, winning $15,000 cash and $10,000 of in-kind services. This was one of the highlights of my first year in business school.


I worked with Marc Montserrat (my learning teammate) and Pitou Devgon (a physician and recent grad) to develop a business plan for a medical device known as PhlebCath. PhlebCath is designed to revolutionize the process of drawing blood from patients by eliminating painful needle sticks. By going through an already-inserted IV, the device will also drive efficiency gains by eliminating wasted time in finding veins for blood drawing. We named our company Next Generation Phlebotomy (phlebotomy is the process of drawing blood).

Over 300 teams submitting business plans in the first round. 25 teams were selected to proceed to the semifinals. 8 teams were then selected for the finals - roughly 4 health care and 4 non-health care teams. This was the first year in the history of the competition that the industry make-up of the final needed to match the industry make-up of the semifinals.

After submitting a 45-page business plan, giving a 20 minute presentation to the judges, and giving a 2-minute elevator pitch to the audience (something I did), we were thrilled to win 2nd place in the competition. We celebrated at Tiffin and ate wonderful Indian food.

See here for the award winners from the competition:
http://bpc.wharton.upenn.edu/

Patagonia Days 5-6: Las Torres

If the hike to the French Valley was a day of reckoning, then my last day on the W trail was a morning of reckoning.

Day 5 was an easy 4 hour hike to Refugio Cuernos with good weather. But on Day 6, I got up at 4:30am to hike to the Base of the Towers to see sunrise on the three towers, the 3rd and final attraction of the W trail.


Unfortunately, none of my friends wanted to wake up this early, but I found two trekkers from Chicago who were intrepid enough to join me. It was just as well - I didn't have a head lamp; one of them did. The previous night we asked the staffers at Cuernos when we needed to leave to see sunrise on the towers. We heard a range of answers but we chose the earliest time to be conservative.

This was a mistake.

Though we reached the towers after a 2 hour pre-dawn hike before sunrise in which we hiked through snow flurries, we nearly froze to death while waiting for the sun to illuminate the towers. You see, sunrise doesn't necessarily mean that the sun's rays will be on the towers. Sunrise actually happens on the other side of the valley and it takes an hour after sunrise for the sun to shine on the towers. We waited, and huddled for warmth, at the foot of the towers for a hour for the light. The first 10 minutes were peaceful as we were the *first* people to the towers. We sat in complete silence, staring up at the towers, through the mist that blanketed the lower half of the mountains.

After a while, the next group of hikers joined us in the wait, and our peaceful silence was broken.

We continued to wait and freeze. The temperature must have been in the high 20s compared to 50-60 degrees the valley. I couldn't feel my fingers, then my hands, then my toes, then my feet. After an hour of waiting, though the sun's rays were not completely on towers, I decided to save my extremities and descend. Once I had dropped 500 feet, the blood returned to my hands and I felt searing pain. Only later did I learn that this was known as a 're-perfusion injury' - when the blood returns to vessels that have had low blood pressure.



On the way down, I saw my friends, who would get up to the towers at just the right time to see towers beautifully illuminated.