Pre-, Pre-, Pre-MBAs

“We wanted to give our students the best possible role models,” says Fran Rusciano Murnane, director of advancement at Risen Christ School. The Catholic school in south Minneapolis has recruited corporate leaders from Schroeder Company, Bald Eagle Erectors, and other businesses to be mentors in a new program called Imagine the Possibilities. Rusciano Murnane matches them with small groups of sixth through eighth graders whose lives are filled with obstacles.

Of Risen Christ’s 325 students, 90 percent live at or below poverty level. Many will be the first in their families to graduate from high school. Imagine the Possibilities is designed to help them see possible careers for themselves and how their school work can help them reach those goals.

Rusciano Murnane says some mentors have overcome their own share of obstacles: “Some people have had very similar stories to our students’. None got to where they are without a journey. Our students are on a very long journey.”

Mentor: Joel Moryn, president, Parsons Electric

Does: Electrical- and technology-services work

Personal History: From shop helper to company president in his 29 years at Parsons.

Lesson Plan: Moryn took students on a tour of one of his company’s premier projects, Target Field. “I’m trying to help them see that even though we’re in the electrical and technology construction business, there’s creativity required,” he says. “So we just told them to look at it differently. Look at it from the perspective of a technology contractor and . . . what do you see looking up instead of looking down [at the field]?” Moryn emphasizes to students that all of their abilities and classes in school can come into play in surprising ways in a career: “You just never know what you’re going to use.” He’s asking students to study an electrical-communications project from start to finish and identify the skills it takes to complete the steps.