Hello! My name is Luke Packard, and I am originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, the city where the University of Michigan is located. I am currently a junior in the Pitt College of Business Administration. I am pursuing degrees in marketing and supply chain management while also working towards a certificate in innovation and entrepreneurship. My ultimate career goal would be to start my own sustainable clothing brand. This past summer I worked as a marketing intern in Ann Arbor for a local foundation focusing on teen and young adult mental health.
At Pitt, I am vice president of the Pitt Men’s Club Water Polo team, a position that has provided me with the opportunity to professionally develop my leadership skills. Away from the classroom I have many hobbies and activities that I spend my free time doing. I love watching movies (my current favorite is Good Will Hunting), playing pickup basketball, making my own clothes, and supporting all Detroit based sports teams. Above all else I am a huge fan of music. Some of my favorite artists include Marvin Gaye, Alicia Keys, Amy Winehouse, and Childish Gambino, but I will listen to anything so please give me song recommendations!
As I have gotten further into my academic career it has become more apparent to me that I am an experiential learner. Meaning that the best way for me to learn and retain information is by actually participating in a project. Unfortunately, most classes are limited in that aspect. This is why I was initially attracted to this opportunity – I wanted to be able to gain some real life experiences while at Pitt and have a chance to experience a new culture. I am someone who loves to learn about people and what is unique about them and GSL programs give me that opportunity. These programs also give a good glimpse into the world of consulting, which is a professional avenue I want to explore. As I did further research on all of the Global Service Learning programs I was drawn to the one in Trinidad and Tobago. The company located in Trinidad that we are directly working with is called Nature Seekers. Nature Seekers is an ecotourism business that works directly to help preserve leatherback sea turtle populations and keep the beaches of Matura clean. They offer many different kinds of tours for people to experience and even have a workshop where you can recycle glass found on the beach into jewelry. They have made large impacts on the community and environment by helping eliminate the poaching of turtles and other harmful practices. They do this by educating the community and even providing jobs to former poachers as Nature Seekers found out they were only doing it to make ends meet without a job. In further efforts to help turtles in the area they put tracking devices on the adult turtles who nest in the area in order to learn more about their habits and how to best help them.
As a group we are working directly with Nature Seekers to help them grow by integrating an effective booking system into their website. As it stands now, Nature Seekers can only take reservations through email and with payment in person. Our job is to find appropriate systems that allow users to seamlessly book and pay for their experience before coming to visit Nature Seekers, and present the options for their consideration. Over spring break we will visit Trinidad and Tobago and present our initial findings to Nature Seekers, but the work is not done there. After we return to Pittsburgh we will use the information gathered from the in country visit to help further guide our decisions. These first four weeks of the semester have already been so enriching and eye opening and I am beyond excited to see what the future holds.