{"id":3431,"date":"2015-01-16T21:36:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T02:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2015\/01\/16\/flight-plan\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T21:23:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T02:23:20","slug":"flight-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/flight-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Crit<\/a><\/p>\n

One\u00a0week after Crit Jones \u201914 \u00a0graduated Furman, he was hired by\u00a0Duggan Associates Inc.,\u00a0a consulting company specializing in operational excellence. A \u00a0few months later, the business and accounting major from Argyle, Texas, was touching down in\u00a0Malaysia to begin a\u00a0project with\u00a0FMC Technologies.<\/p>\n

Kirk Karwan,\u00a0Ph.D.,\u00a0who was one of Jones’s professors, said that the business faculty were a little surprised at the speed of his ascent.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe landed a job with an aggressive, smaller consulting firm that is\u00a0expanding its reach,\u201d Karwan said. \u201cWe would like to see more of our students placed in organizations like this.”<\/p>\n

Jones started cultivating his\u00a0relationship\u00a0with Duggan Associates his junior year at Furman.\u00a0Some of Duggan’s\u00a0consultants had worked with a company where Jones’s\u00a0father was employed, so Jones\u00a0called the company’s owner, Kevin Duggan, to inquire about the possibility of\u00a0an internship. Duggan offered him an opportunity\u00a0in Rhode Island, where the firm is located.<\/p>\n

Jones’s\u00a0second internship with the company began his senior year when the Duggan\u00a0asked if he would be interested in a project in Texas.\u00a0When that internship ended, Jones\u00a0told Duggan ” . . . that as long as he had work and could utilize me, that was the direction I wanted to go.\u201d Jones kept in touch with the firm, and it wasn’t long before the next\u00a0opportunity materialized.<\/p>\n

In fact, after graduation, he did not interview with any other companies.<\/p>\n

Jones, an associate with Duggan, works with senior associates to design processes and implement changes. As part of his initial job training, he spent time with several\u00a0companies in Texas and Ohio\u00a0to study\u00a0value stream mapping, layout design, and mix model training,\u00a0among others.<\/p>\n

One of his early projects in Chicago was\u00a0designing and implementing the future state value stream for\u00a0GoGo Air, a company that installs WiFi on airlines. The project was of special interest to Jones, who has been a\u00a0licensed pilot since he was 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up flying with my father,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cFlying\u00a0teaches you preparedness and how to follow\u00a0standards.\u201d That experience transfers to his consulting job.<\/p>\n

His work with\u00a0FMC Technologies in Malaysia\u00a0also included designing a new layout and beginning implementation of the project. He will return to work on two other projects with the company that manufactures oil and gas equipment for offshore wells.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery situation is different,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s understanding how a process can be implemented. I want to have some industry experience and consulting gives you a wide perspective on various industries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helping companies create robust processes \u201cputs power in an employee\u2019s hands,\u201d he said, allowing them to solve problems in offices, on manufacturing floors or in designing a product.<\/p>\n

Future plans including obtaining an MBA, he said, but he\u2019s not sure when or how that will occur. It would be a difficult task to earn an MBA while working full-time as a consultant. His long-term goal is to become an entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in an environment where my family owned a small company,\u201d he said. \u201cI enjoy the small business environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

His advice to Furman students is to use internships to start early in a career that they might be interested in, gaining experience in different industries. That experience can help when trying to find the first job because \u201cyou can point to your experience and say \u2018I\u2019ve done it before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Employers want to hire someone \u201cwho is passionate about the experience,\u201d he said. He also suggested that students not rely solely on businesses that come to Furman to interview prospective employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to pursue a company you\u2019re interested in and reach out to them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Learn more about the\u00a0Business and Accounting Department<\/a> and Furman internships<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One\u00a0week after Crit Jones \u201914 \u00a0graduated Furman, he was hired by\u00a0Duggan Associates Inc.,\u00a0a consulting company specializing in operational excellence. A \u00a0few months later, the business and accounting major from Argyle, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":14252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,34,3,20,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-admission","category-alumni","category-business-and-accounting","category-internships"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35812,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions\/35812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}