Andres Michel Jr.

Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business

“Grit, underdog, self-driven, persistent, humble, generous, helpful.”

Hometown: Houston, TX

Fun Fact About Yourself: I started my own landscaping business my sophomore year in high school to pay for a portion of my undergraduate studies.

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Houston (Electrical Engineering)

Most Recent Employer and Job Title:

Electrical Power System Engineer-Chevron North America

Project Engineering Instrumentation and Electrical Engineer- Chevron North America

Asset Development Instrumentation and Electrical Engineer- Chevron North America

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest accomplishment in my career so far has been realizing my wife’s dream of starting and managing our own confectionary art business called Very Cherry Cakes.

What quality best describes the MBA classmates you’ve met so far and why? Humble because he has served in the military for 10 years and has been away from his family for extensive period to protect our freedom.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? With my engineering background, I have had the opportunity to work with a lot of different improvement projects. As an engineer my task was always to implement technologies that would help gather data to predict future failures in equipment or predict future outcomes. After successfully bringing the data back to the office from the field the biggest issue was understanding what the data was representing. While I was researching different schools, I wanted an MBA program that applied data analytics to business decisions. Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business really stood out to me on how the curriculum they have developed is main core in data analytics. I believe that data analytics is the future of any industry.

What club or activity are you looking most forward to in business school? I look forward in participating in clubs that are highly involved with the local community helping others better themselves.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? During my undergraduate studies, I was operating my own landscaping business and felt the need to increase my business administration knowledge. I decided to pursue a minor in business administration and I was able to quickly apply the knowledge I learned in the classroom to my business and was able to expand my business by improving efficiencies. This experience early in my career made me decide that after working in the industry for four years and attaining my professional engineering license that I was going to purse an MBA. I am currently at that point in my career and look forward to the future as an MBA student at Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business.

How did you decide if an MBA was worth the investment? Running the numbers on the cost of attaining an MBA from a top business school can scare anyone away. I decided to take a different approach on deciding if an MBA was worth the investment. My strategy was self-reflection and asking myself what really drives me to push myself to my best performance. My results were leading people to success and managing a business. An MBA to me made sense in the aspect that it was going to help me improve in my leadership skills and business administration skills.

What other MBA programs did you apply to?

UVA Darden School of Business

Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University

Michigan Ross

How did you determine your fit at various schools? When I was looking how I fit at various schools, I made sure I visited the campus with my wife before applying to the school. I made sure to attend a class visit and student-held webinars to have a better understanding if my wife and I were going to a fit to the school. Another important school attribute was an outstanding career center. Being a career switcher, I knew that I was going to need all the help I could get to make a successful career switch.

What was your defining moment and how did it shape who you are? My parents immigrated to the United States from Mexico in search of a better future for me and my two sisters. They left their family behind to give their children a better education and future. I have to say that this has been my defining moment in my life that has shaped who I am. Without my parents sacrifice, I would not have the opportunities that I have now.

What do you plan to do after you graduate? After I graduate, I plan to continue paying it forward by helping kids in need to continue higher education. Growing up in an underserved community, I have always seen the need of mentors in my community to come back and help develop future leaders.

Where do you see yourself in five years? In five years I see myself growing in my professional career but at the same time managing my own scholarship foundation helping underserved children attain their full potential.