What's the Word? Eagle Alumni Spotlight: Joey Cilano

Abigail: Alright, hello everybody and welcome back. Today we are joined with Joey Cilano and Joey, why don't you give us a little bit of background about yourself?

Joey: Hi, thanks. Thanks for the invite. Like you said, my name is Joey Cilano. I am a Embry Riddle Prescott Campus graduate of 2017. Specifically, spring of 2017 because I know there is a difference with the guys that graduate in the in the winter. My major, I had a couple of different majors when I was there. Like a lot of people I came in as an engineer and left as something else. So, I came in as an aerospace engineering, didn't like that, moved over to computer engineering, enjoyed that, but then flunked a bunch of classes, and so moved over to Business Administration, which I was actually the first graduate of the Business Administration Degree without the aviation modifier on the front of that. That was, my focus became, after I was taking those business classes, my focus became to look for a job in a financial role, something like a financial analyst, or planner, or something along those lines. So I was able to get a job with Drake Cement, which is the cement plant that's up in Paulden just about 35 minutes north of the campus. And I got that job actually, through a contact with Professor Rick Gipson, who recommended me to the team there at Drake, and I've worked in that job, or I worked for Drake for six years, taking on various roles financial analyst, financial planner. And then in June of 2022, I got promoted to become the manager of financial planning and analysis after I finished my master's degree at ASU. And I was planning on being in that role for several years. But as life happens, emergencies come up and positions need to be filled and the corporate structure has to continue rolling on. And so I just recently about a month and a half ago, moved over to Drake Cement's sister company Desert Ready Mix, which is located in Mesa, Arizona, and I am now the controller there, here at Desert Ready Mix. So pretty much I'm in charge of all of the counting and reporting, accounts payable, payments, that sort of thing, treasury management, here at Desert Ready Mix. And while I was at while while I was in school at Embry Riddle, I was the president of the College Republicans Club, which I don't know if it's still active on campus there or not, but that that was was what I would say is probably my favorite memory there on campus was that in my senior year, we were able to host Chris Tonto Paronto, who was one of the survivors of the Benghazi attack in 2011, or 2012. I don't remember exactly when it was, but he was one of the survivors. And we were able to host him as a speaker there at the activity center. And we had about 900 people from the campus and around the community and Prescott there, come out to see him talk. And we were actually able to raise, if I remember correctly, it was something like 13 or $14,000 for a Memorial Scholarship in the name of Glen Doherty, who was a Embry Riddle alumni, and was one of the Navy SEALs contractors that was there that night on September 11, in Benghazi, who was killed by the militants. So that was probably one of my favorite memories there. And then what I, what I enjoy about my current role, I really enjoy the people that I work with. That's been the you know, the transition because it's been kind of a fast transition. And I'm only been here for about a month. After working with the same people for six years, you have that those connections and the camaraderie and it's tough to leave that, but the team here at Desert Ready Mix has been a very welcoming, very open and we've had a great time so far. It's been great getting to know them.

Abigail: Wow, it sounds like you've had a very eventful journey to where you are, but it sounds like it has been very rewarding.

Joey: Yes, absolutely.

Abigail: That's awesome. And now what is a typical day look like at your current job?

Joey: Typical day at my current job, see this, this is the fun thing because you know, if you had asked me this question a month ago, when I was in my previous role, I would be able to like lay everything out for you because I was pretty well established. But only being in the role now for about a month there's, there's just so many things going on and trying to keep up with everything. I would say the biggest thing you know, we are in charge of making sure that all of the, all of the invoices and everything like that with our vendors are, are entered correctly. We pay our vendors on time and that sort of thing. So that's a big one every day. We have you know, invoices that we have to enter my my accounts payable team processes more than 200 invoices per day, I think is the number that they told me, which is a lot. Yeah. So a lot of that sort of thing and there's a lot of back and forth communication of people saying, hey, you know, what account do we put this into, you know, hey, is this vendor approved, you know, this sort of thing. And then on top of that, I'm also responsible for making sure that the team is, you know, is taken care of nobody's overworked, nobody's under work, you know, making sure that everybody's comfortable. And then, of course, you know, as is the case, in any corporate structure, you have the reporting to your, to your ownership group, or your parent company, or whatever it is. And so there's a lot of requests coming in from the, from the ownership group, making sure that they're, you know, getting the bang for their buck, and making sure that their investment is, is being handled properly. So I would say that's probably like, very broad strokes the day to day.

Abigail: Oh, okay. And was your other job kind of similar to what you're doing now, or are there a little bit of overlaps?

Joey: Well, there are some overlaps. The big thing that I was doing as manager of financial planning and analysis was like the budgeting and forecasting. So we would take all of the work that the accounting team did, and all of the information that our operations and production team did, and we try and forecast out what would be happening over the next three months, 12 months, 10 years, you know, those long term forecasts so that the executives of the company could make good long term decisions, you know, it make, make pivots, you know, the management, the middle managers to make pivots on things that, you know, if certain things were, were not hittng their targets, they could say, okay, well, maybe we need to try such and such instead of this other thing that we're trying. So that was, that was really the big focus for me at my previous role. So it was a lot more, you could call it theoretical or conceptual, whereas this new role is very practical. There's a lot of, you know, very practical, hands in the dirt, so to speak, making sure that everything is functioning the way that it's supposed to go.

Abigail: Right. And would you say you had more writing to do at your other job or at your current job?

Joey: So, I would look at it in two ways, there's probably a lot more, there was a lot more formal writing at my previous job, but there's a lot more informal writing at my current job. Because it's, you know, a lot of, a lot of companies and I'm sure that Embry-Riddle you guys use some sort of instant messaging application now. And so we're using Microsoft Teams. And so there's a lot of communication that way. And so it becomes, you know, some of it is just basic, like texts, like, you know, do such and such. And then someone says, Oh, I forgot to do such and such, lol, you know, what you wouldn't really see in like an email or a memo. But there is still a lot of that memo writing, making sure that something, you know, especially if I have to ask for direction from my superior, you write an email that is going to be very concise. Because these people are very busy. Obviously, they have a lot of, a lot of work to do, I report directly to the CFO. But on the other hand, you want to make sure that they're gettng 100% of the information. So you don't want to leave anything out, but you also don't want to write a book that they're not going to read. So it's kind of a fun mix there. Because it takes it takes a little bit of practice to get the idea of what information needs to be included and what information doesn't. And then also cleaning up your writing style so that you're not using superfluous words, such as the word superfluous. Just kidding. But you know, and making sure that the point is coming across. And the other thing that I have a fun time with, as well is that Drake Cement is owned by a company based out of Lima, Peru. And so a lot of my superiors, English is their second language. And so it becomes a little bit of a challenge that language barrier, where you have to make sure that you're again being very clear, very concise, but you're also using language that is understandable. And sometimes following up with like a face to face to make sure that everything is coming across correctly, just because of that translation barrier.

Abigail: Oh, yeah, that sounds very challenging.

Joey: Yeah, it's it's a good challenge, though. I think that, that diversity of viewpoint really strengthens the company overall, because we get a lot of different perspectives of people that, you know, maybe grew up outside of the United States or grew up inside of the United States, but their families or they lived in a different country or something like that. So it you know, we really embrace the challenge of taking on that language barrier. And, and we've been, you know, in that in Drake Cement and Desert Ready Mix, and across the whole group, We've been very successful.

Abigail: That's awesome. So have you noticed any big differences between writong you did at Embry-Riddle and writing you're doing currently?

Joey: That's a good question. I got to think back a little bit. When I took my writing classes at Embry-Riddle. My focus was I think I took technical report writing professor Mangum and that was more geared towards like the engineering side of things. And so we learned very practical ways to make our writing very concise and clear. Things like not using the word utilize when you can use the word use because they mean the same thing and utilize, most of the time just sounds pretentious. You know, little things like that, it that actually helps so much, because it taught me how to make sure that my wording is precise and clear. And I'm not, you know, because I like hearing myself talk. But that's not great for memo writing, you want to get down to brass tacks, and not waste anybody's time, especially when these people are making you know, $150 an hour time literally is money, right? So yeah, that sort of thing helped a lot. But in terms of like, the difference between writing in college versus writing in, you know, the business world, I would say, really, the biggest difference is in the formality, the approach of the formality. Because when you're writing, like an assignment, for instance, and you say, okay, you have to get this many pages, you have to do it in this style, so on and so forth. You, you want to make sure you hit all of the proper structure and everything like that. Whereas, you still take those principles into the real world with you. But everybody is different, because everybody's learned differently. And so you take the approach of saying, Okay, well, I was taught how to do it this way. But so and so who's my superior, he likes it a little bit differently. Or maybe she likes one big paragraph, or multiple paragraphs, or whatever it is. And so, you know, taking those principles that you learned in school, and applying them on an individual basis, I think, is really the biggest thing. Because sometimes I'll write something very formal, and make sure that it's very clear. But those are the things that like we're sending off to our lawyers, or maybe up to the owner of the company or something like that. Whereas with my direct superior, maybe I'll just be like, Hey, here's the situation, here's what I think will fix the situation what do you think, and it's really more in like bullet format, as opposed to like, paragraph format or something like that?

Abigail: Right. Right. So trying to find the right medium for writing for the right audience?

Joey: Exactly. Exactly.

Abigail: Okay. And so that leads me to my last question, do you have any advice for our current eagles?

Joey: I think I would say two things to all of the current students that are going to be listening to this and especially as you're approaching your like, junior and senior year. The first thing would be: get to know your professors really well, because Embry Riddle does a really good job of hiring professors that know what the heck that they're doing, you know, I liked it, I, at least when that when I was there, I don't know if it's still the case, but the professor's had to have at least 10 years of experience in the field that they were teaching. Which I think is brilliant, because they know it's not just academic to them, it's practical to them. And they also come with a lot of contacts. And like I said, my first job out of school I got because my professor sent my resume to someone that he knew at the company that I work, that I ended up working for. And those contacts are extremely valuable, because when it comes down to it, business is all about people and that and I don't say business in terms of like business degrees or working. You know, I mean, working for a business doing business in general, whether you're an engineer, or a financial person, or an accounting person, or even if you end up being a pilot or something like that. It's all about the people. And so having those contacts are super important. So that would be the first thing that I would say. The second thing that I would say is stay flexible because you learn a lot of great things, and Embry-Riddle prepares you really well for getting out into the workforce. But the reality of it is that everything that you learn in the classroom, you don't throw it away when you get into the real world, but you supplement it by the reality of the situation. You're not in a controlled environment. You don't have a professor there to walk you through the steps, all the different things that come with being in a university setting. So keeping that flexible approach to things and saying, Okay, this is the way that I was taught, but here's how they do it at my company, how can I make sure that I'm still, you know, still following the correct principles and doing the right thing, but also fall in line with what my, with what my company does already, or so on and so forth. You know, along with that, it's kind of like finding a mentor. When you get into get into whatever position you end up getting after you graduate from Riddle. Find someone that can help you navigate that transition from the academic world - real world and help you learn and stay in that, keeping that flexible path forward.

Abigail: That is great advice. Thank you, Joey. And a big thank you for being on our podcast today. Do you have any parting words you'd like to give us?

Joey: To quote Albus Dumbledore, a parting word might be something like nitwit. 

Abigail: That's a good, a good quote.

Joey: I don't remember the other things that he said but I love that part of those books. 

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Amelia: This podcast is supported by the Department of Humanities and Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, Abby Bradberry is our host. Matthew Haslam is our department chair. And I'm Amelia Chesley, Assistant Professor of Professional Writing. The intro and outro music is Wanderer by Aylex. Find us on YouTube or reach out if you're an alumni and would like to be featured in a future episode.

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