'An Environment I Wanted To Be Part Of'

For Dan Robillard, community has always been important. After working in the U.S. Navy for eight years, Robillard was looking for a community to call his own as he transitioned back to private life. And while pursuing an online MBA at the Smith School of Business, that’s exactly what he found.

“There was this community of veterans that really helped each other out,” Robillard says. “It was an environment that I wanted to be a part of.”

Robillard wasn’t sure whether he wanted to continue working in the military when he began his MBA studies in 2017, but he knew that a master’s would benefit him no matter what direction he took. Eventually, Robillard elected to step away from the military and his role as a supply corps officer, in part because of his growing family. As a new father of two, Robillard wanted to work in a capacity that would allow him to be around his family more.

He says he also felt confident stepping away from the military and setting off in a new direction, with the broad exposure he gained at Maryland Smith.

“From entrepreneurship to accounting to marketing, somehow I could relate them to my current experiences, and it opened just so many doors in the private sector,” Robillard says.

Robillard completed his MBA in 2019 with a focus in logistics and supply chain management, but he says the project that stands out most to him was one from an entrepreneurship class, in which he and a group of classmates had to create a business from the ground up. As the project lead for his group, Robillard learned a lot about leadership, and that’s played a key role in his career aspirations.

“I’d like to be in a position where I’m leading people,” Robillard says. “I’ve got a small team that works for me now, but there’s always steps up from there – becoming a CEO, a director, a VP, other things like that.”

Robillard currently works as a business operations manager for Cisco, where he works within the global services, logistics, and operations department. His time at Smith, he says, has helped him with more than just leadership and understanding business. Cisco’s headquarters is in San Jose, Calif., and Robillard is in Raleigh, N.C., and Robillard says he uses the skills he learned from the online aspect of his MBA every day.

“Working virtually or remotely definitely prepped me for my current role not being at headquarters,” Robillard says.

Looking forward, Robillard is focused on raising his children and earning promotions within Cisco. As for the veteran community that played such an integral part in bringing Robillard to Smith, you can be sure he still keeps in touch.

–By Sean Liu, Maryland Smith special writer

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