At UCLA Anderson, we believe our students are engaged, courageous, humble, and open. Describe a time when you demonstrated one of these traits in your personal life.

Outside the office, I spend time coaching sailing and volunteering on advisory boards for the sport. I primarily coach two-person youth teams, consisting of a skipper and crew. There is an annual award in Sailing World Magazine – the largest publication for sailing news – that highlights top youth sailors around the country in “Gary Jobson’s All-Star Junior List.”

When this list was announced a few years ago, it only highlighted skippers, and not one crew was recognized despite having the same finishes as their skippers. I didn’t think this was sending the right message of teamwork to our youth sailors as this implies that the crew’s role is not important. I am passionate about shared success and recognize the benefits of working together towards a common goal. Challenging the status quo, I wrote a letter to the editor of the magazine addressing this concern and posing the question, “How we can overcome this perception to excite more youth sailors to crew?”

In response, I partnered with Sailing World and wrote an article aimed to inspire youth sailors, highlighting my Olympic experience as crew. After the article was published, I met with Gary and we discussed additional ways to showcase team success in our sport. Next year, four teams were featured on Gary Jobson’s All-Star Junior List and the Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year was awarded to a team.

I look forward to further building myself into a courageous leader and engaging with classmates to collectively enhance the Anderson community.