Meeting Mr. Moore
A Petti Story
It's the spring of 2015, and I am a senior at Texas A&M University. I'm walking through the front doors into the Wehner building on campus, which is unusual considering that this is the primary building for business school students, which I've never had a class in. For the last three and a half years, I've been working toward my degree in civil engineering. and I'm just a few months from graduating.
As I walk into the front lobby, I head toward the elevators to make my way up to the third floor for a meeting I've scheduled with Mr. Kevin Moore, the Director of the Master of Finance Program.
I've scheduled this meeting with Mr. Moore because I'm lost. I'm lost because I'm not sure civil engineering is what I want to do for the long term. See, there are two primary pathways for a civil engineering student. The first is construction, the second is design, and I have been fortunate enough to have worked in both. The issue is that neither seems to be what I want to do long-term, which puts me in a pickle, considering I'm supposed to be done with this whole college thing in a matter of months.
I'm hoping to learn more about the opportunities in the business world. Similar to me, Mr. Moore's undergrad was in engineering, but he switched to finance, so maybe he could relate to my predicament. I find his office, knock on his door, and am greeted by the kind man who offers me a seat in front of his desk. I tell him my story, and he tells me about the Masters of Finance program that he leads.
As we approach the end of our time for a conversation, Mr. Moore begins to tell me more about his career and personal journey through life. He tells me about his experience in the Army, and at Wells Fargo, Deutsch Bank, and Goldman Sachs.
Then, he tells a story of a decision that had one of the most positive impacts on his career: a decision to move companies and take on a new job. The catch was that the job he was moving to had a significantly lower salary than his current salary. Despite offering a lower salary, the new job was an opportunity for him to get onto the path he wanted to be on for the long term. He made the transition, took the lower salary, and now that his career has developed, he can connect the dots looking back and identify that decision as one that had one of the most significant positive impacts on his trajectory.
While the idea at the surface doesn't seem all that revolutionary, it's the first time I've been introduced to this idea by someone who has lived through it, at least as far as I can remember. I've always thought of careers as a continuum of forward steps, each accompanied by a salary increase that measures the amount of forward progress you've made. But this story from Mr. Moore showed me that measuring your progress in terms of your salary can lead you down a path you don't want to be on for the long term. It decoupled forward progress from salary increases.
As our time expires, I thank Mr. Moore for his time as I stand up to walk out of his office, with no idea of the impact that his story and the decoupling of progress from salary will have on the decisions I will make in the future.
