Nicholas (Nick) Vest

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

“I’m a hardworking, fun-loving, Oreo enthusiast, and college football aficionado.”

Hometown: Fairfield, IL

Fun Fact About Yourself: I owned three basset hounds growing up.

Undergraduate School and Major: Louisiana State University, Petroleum Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Pilgrim Energy Partners, Founder and General Manager

What word best describes the Tuck MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far and why? Supportive.  Inclusiveness and empathy are major guiding principals at Tuck, and they are reflected in every interaction that I’ve had here.

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? Tuck’s ability and willingness to offer a family-friendly (really, a family-first) atmosphere for its students made this an easy choice. As a husband and father, being able to incorporate my family into my MBA experience was a top-of-mind criterion when choosing a business school.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Dartmouth Tuck? Tuck’s Revers Center for Energy. The Revers Center advises students on many different professional paths and helps them to understand how a career related not just to existing energy careers, but emerging technologies, is essential in a dynamic global economy.

What excites you the most about coming to live in Hanover? What is the one activity you can’t wait to do? I grew up in a small town in Illinois, but moved to Hanover from Houston. Returning to a life that lacks gridlock traffic has been a welcome change. I’m looking forward to taking my family sledding this winter.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Closing my first asset acquisition with Pilgrim Energy Partners.

How did COVID-19 change your perspective on your career and your life in general? COVID-19 highlighted my need to expand my horizons beyond a single industry. The knowledge, resources, and network at Tuck are an ideal fit for this.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation? After ten years in the oil and gas industry, I felt that I needed to gain additional business acumen to continue to grow as a leader. I hope to continue in a management position with a firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, and Wharton

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Dartmouth Tuck’s MBA program? Everyone that I’ve met at Tuck truly wants to be here. If attending Tuck is your goal, make that desire apparent in your application, not just by an impressive test score or resume, but in your essays as well.

DON’T MISS: MEET DARTMOUTH TUCK’S MBA CLASS OF 2023