Networking Skills Connect Hillman Students to Business Owners

By Gustavo Ramirez
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On Tuesday December 5th Antony Canales and I attended the Commercial Broker Breakfast hosted by the Rockville Economic Development, Inc. (REDI) at an office building on Research Boulevard in Rockville recently renovated by the co-host of the event, Kane Construction.
This was a valuable event because I had the opportunity to meet business owners in different fields. Fellow Hillman student Antony and I spent our time at the event networking with others to see through their words what it is like at their work. For example, we had the opportunity to speak with Marvin Bennett who owns a civil engineering company.  He told us what it is like to be a civil engineer and the type of jobs they usually take on. I found the conversation with Mr. Bennett to be interesting because in high school I shadowed a construction company for a day, throughout which I got to see what it was like to be in the construction niche and how so many pieces have to come together in order to get to the final product.
I also met sales people from a business called Human Scale and saw what their tasks entailed. The product they were pitching to business owners at the event was a fixable desk for the office. This desk allows people who sit at their computers for a long time to turn their sit-down desk into a stand-up desk — a product that is useful for  companies that care about the health of their employees. 
The networking at this event was great; I got to meet so many people who were surprised by us being there because we were so young. Every person we talked to said how they found it great that we were at a networking event just trying to get a glimpse of what it is like to run an engineering business.  In addition to learning useful information that I plan to use later on, I also used what I learned in class about how to network and how to exchange business cards with others.