Scott L. Carmona College of Business News

October 7, 2014

SVSU student impresses Quicken Loans CEO during internship

Rosalie Stackpole knows how to seize opportunity. As one of 1,000 summer interns for Quicken Loans, she was determined to seek out new challenges.

“I went in with the attitude that I’m here for a reason,” Stackpole said. “I would speak up at meetings.”

Only a few weeks into the summer, Stackpole received a rare opportunity for an intern: she was part of a team that prepared a marketing campaign proposal they presented directly to Quicken’s CEO.

“I was intimidated at first,” she said.

Anxiety was replaced with confidence – and a lot of assignments – after Stackpole’s team saw their idea endorsed, impressing the company’s leader.

“It was a real pleasure having Rosalie with us this summer,” said Jay Farner, president and CEO of Quicken Loans. “Her enthusiasm and passion is a great representation of the exceptional work we’ve seen from our interns, and we are thrilled to have had as big an impact on her as she has had on Quicken Loans.”

Stackpole made such an impression that Quicken asked her to recruit other SVSU students with the intelligence and work ethic she displayed. While completing her marketing degree, Stackpole remains on the payroll as a campus ambassador, and she is organizing a bus trip for 50 students to visit Quicken headquarters Friday, Oct. 10.

“I tried to sell SVSU while I was there,” she explained. “I’m a Cardinal. That’s what we do.”

In addition to introducing around 1,000 interns to the company each year, Quicken also seeks to sell them on the revival of Detroit.

“It worked on me,” Stackpole said.

Born and raised in the Detroit suburb of Trenton, Stackpole’s parents had reservations about their daughter working in downtown Detroit, but she assured them that their fears were unfounded.

“I walked from Cobo Hall every day and I felt completely safe,” she said. “Quicken expects their interns to work hard and put in long hours, but they also want you to enjoy Detroit.”

Stackpole participated in the “Live Downtown” games, where several companies sponsor employees to compete in socially responsible contests.  She was part of a team that raced to see who would be the fastest to fill 500 emergency baskets for the American Red Cross; they won.

“We have actual gold medals,” Stackpole said.

On pace to graduate with her SVSU business degree next May, Stackpole was selected for SVSU’s Vitito Global Business Leadership Institute, an 18-month leadership development program with international travel for SVSU business students. She also remains heavily involved on campus as a manager for the women’s basketball team and a member of Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority.

Stackpole hopes her current assignment with Quicken leads to an opportunity to work for the company full-time.

“I learned a lot about mortgages,” she said, “and I fell in love with Quicken Loans.”‌‌

August 26, 2014

SVSU finance student Leecia Barnes accepts full-time job with Enterprise Holdings before graduation

As Leecia Barnes moved closer to graduating from high school in 2011, her parents regularly asked, “What’s the plan?”

Three years later, she’s close to completing that plan — graduating from Saginaw Valley State University with a bachelor’s degree in finance — and already has found success in her next plan, well before most college students do.

Barnes, an intern at Enterprise Holdings since May, impressed her employers enough this summer that she was offered a full-time position at the parent company of several car rental businesses including Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

The Flint native will begin her role as a management trainee after she earns her SVSU degree in December.

“It’s been so great,” she said of the internship that turned into the promise of a full-time job.

Barnes worked at various Enterprise Holdings branches across the Great Lakes Bay Region as an intern this summer, largely assisting in customer service issues. One week, she was put in charge of the Midland branch while a manager was out of the office.

“They trained me up to the point where they could leave me in charge of the place,” she said. “That was cool.”

Her success professionally matches her upward trajectory academically.

When Barnes’ dancing coach recommended she attend SVSU after graduating from Beecher High School, Barnes enrolled at the Saginaw university and began classes in fall 2011 as a recipient of the President’s Scholarship.

Since, she’s also been active as a student outside of the classroom, working for the university’s Admissions office and joining both the institution’s Forte Dance Team — where she currently serves as captain — and the SVSU chapter of Delta Sigma Pi, an international business fraternity.

She credits SVSU’s finance program in part for helping prepare her for the professional world.

“Just listening to how the professors work with their own budgets, it’s helped me figure out how to grow my money and be responsible,” Barnes said.

Those SVSU classes also prepared her to answer her parents’ question — “What’s the plan?” — years in advance. Barnes, who one day intends to apply for graduate school programs in urban planning, hopes eventually to purchase and renovate abandoned buildings while improving struggling neighborhoods.

“I want to get to the point where I can buy (a building) with my own money, and just by listening to how the professors grow their own budgets, it’s helped me figure out how I can do that,” she said. “I want to be able to use that (education) to improve communities.

“What’s the plan? That’s the plan.”