Summer Business Boot Camp
Program Start: 2023
We invite high school students (open to rising 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders) to our Summer Business Boot Camp. High school students will learn about business, leadership, entrepreneurship, choosing majors and minors, preparing for professional careers, and gaining admission into RSBC. They will also have the opportunity to network with business professionals, professors, staff, undergraduate students, other high school students, and tour Rutgers University-Camden.
This free Boot Camp is designed to be fun-filled and interactive. Use the link or QR code on the flyer to register, but due to limited space, registration does not guarantee admission to our Boot Camp. Admission decisions to our Boot Camp will be emailed separately. Additionally, due to the limited space, this is a student-only event (parents are asked to drop-off and pick up students as needed).
Real Estate & Entrepreneurship Panelists:
Nicholas Graf
Nicholas Graf is a junior at Rutgers School of Business-Camden majoring in business administration with a concentration in digital marketing. He returned to college to round out his knowledge after a decade plus in the hospitality industry. During this time, he has overseen and was responsible for all business development, operations, staffing, and local community involvement. His group was responsible for over 60 franchise standards awards including customer service, profit, cleanliness, as well as, opening day and week sales numbers. To take advantage of an opportunity, he opened his own commercial cleaning company in 2019. Since then, his company has been able to achieve double digit growth year over year and he continues to work on growing in their market. Additionally, he is in the process of building his own media company to handle the marketing for their companies.
McKinsey Alston
McKinsey Alston is a Realtor, Real Estate Investor, Adjunct Professor, and Human Resources Executive in the non-profit sector. McKinsey began and grew his professional career with Target Corporation, The Sherwin-Williams Paint Company, Unisys Corporation, and United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey in operations and Human Resources. In his roles, he has managed millions of dollars, large teams, and has supported business units all over the world. McKinsey joined Compass Working Capital in November 2021 as the Chief Human Resources Officer and is responsible for leading the development and execution of their equity-focused human capital strategy.
In 2017, McKinsey launched his real estate journey as an agent and investor where he has grown his investment portfolio to 5 units spanning Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore. With his partner Paul, he co-founded Camden Castle Investments with the goal to build a 250-unit portfolio by 2030. At Camden Castle Investments, McKinsey manages the day-to-day operations including finding, analyzing, and recommending properties to acquire.
In his spare time, McKinsey enjoys spending time with his family and friends, running, golfing, reading, and relaxing on the beach.
Joshua Maiese
Josh Maiese is a graduate of Rutgers University-Camden who attended from 2015- 2019 and obtained a bachelor's degree in finance. He lived the majority of his life in Westville, NJ and currently resides in Blackwood, NJ with his two dogs Nikko and Betty. Currently, he is a Loan Officer at Nation One Mortgage Corporation and helps clients obtain the dream of homeownership and has been doing so for over the past few years. He is passionate about educating others about personal finances and current day real estate market conditions. Josh has many different aspirations in the future including starting multiple businesses, diving into real estate investing, and helping young individuals achieve financial freedom. He loves to travel to all over the world, one of his favorite being a study abroad trip to South Africa with Rutgers School of Business-Camden. When not working, Josh spends most of his days exercising at the gym and spending time with family and friends.
Octavio Yamamoto
Octavio currently resides in Maple Shade, New Jersey. As a teenager, Octavio worked at the Cherry Hill Mall, holding numerous sales roles. He loved helping and interacting with customers. Octavio graduated from Rutgers University Camden with a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Accounting.
During his time at Rutgers, Octavio became the President of the Latin American Student Organization, a Resident Assistant, and the Founder of Bridging 1st Generation Students (B1GS). A club dedicated to mentoring and supporting first-generation college students like himself. Thanks to his dedication and involvement with the Rutgers community, Octavio became the 2017 School of Business Student Commencement Speaker.
After graduating, Octavio began working with Fortune 500 companies as an Auditor for one of the Big Four accounting firms. After a few years of working behind the desk, Octavio wanted to follow his passion for helping others. Real Estate allows him to combine his professional skills from Corporate America with his desire to help his clients find their perfect home or excellent investment property. Most recently, Octavio created Renovations Capital LLC, a real estate investment company that focuses on renovating houses in Camden County.
Orlando M. Rivera, J.D.
Orlando M. Rivera is a Camden native who has found success and stability through entrepreneurship. From as young as ten years old, Mr. Rivera knew he had a gift for finding creative solutions to complex problems. He stepped up to provide for his family and worked several jobs as a young adult, including entrepreneurial efforts in retail, art, and construction services.
After earning his accounting and law degrees from Rutgers University, Mr. Rivera led a professional development startup from a kitchen table to become one of the largest in the nation in its category. He later started a New Jersey and Pennsylvania law practice aimed to help other entrepreneurs find similar success.
In the last decade, Mr. Rivera fell in love with business brokering. One of Mr. Rivera’s strongest callings is advocacy for entrepreneurs of all genders, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds to build wealth through business ownership. In 2015, Mr. Rivera founded ASPIRA Business Brokers & Advisors.
He was featured several times in South Jersey Biz Magazine, was awarded a Small Business Award in 2015 and was a guest speaker for numerous Chambers of Commerce, podcasts, TV, and radio programs.
George Waters
College Readiness - Exploring Majors/Minors Panelists:
Shannon Traum
Shannon Traum has been an Academic Advisor for the Rutgers School of Business-Camden since 2015. She is currently the assigned advisor for all Finance majors, Marketing majors L-Z, and online BBA S-Z. She has come to understand the importance of being someone students can trust when it comes to their education. She helps students create graduation plans with concentrations built in and discusses future career goals especially for those who are undecided. She is a certified Clifton Strengths Coach which allows her to have more profound connections with students and dive deep into who they are besides just being a student! In addition to her career, she is also a wife, a mother to two amazing boys, and a dog mom to two crazy dogs!
Matthew Vazquez
Mathew is a first-generation student with over 10 years of experience in Higher Education at both the community college and university levels. He currently holds the position of Student Counselor at Rutgers University Camden School of Business. Mathew earned his Associate in Arts in Education from Burlington County College and later completed his Bachelor of Arts in English at Thomas Edison State University. Throughout his career, he has been dedicated to supporting and empowering students in their educational journeys. Mathew’s passion for education and commitment to fostering a positive learning environment is what drives his work in higher education thus far in his career.
Outside of work, Matt enjoys going to the movies to see pretty much anything that comes out, traveling, and looking for good places to eat. He is not a fan of cucumbers.
Kaseem Edwards
Ivo Jansen, Ph.D.
Ivo Jansen is an Associate Professor of Accounting, and has been at the Rutgers School of Business | Camden since 2007. He received his B.A. in business economics from the Hogeschool voor Economische Studies in Rotterdam, the Netherlands; his M.B.A. from Loyola University in Chicago; and his Ph.D. in accounting from Indiana University in 2001. His research focuses on valuation, earnings management, trading volume and mergers & acquisitions. It has been published in journals such as Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Financial Economics, Financial Analysts Journal, and Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, among others.
Professor Jansen teaches financial accounting in the undergraduate, MBA, and the professional graduate programs. He has received Superior Achievement Awards for Teaching in the Rutgers School of Business; the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award on the Camden campus; and The Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence and The Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching at the university level.
Leadership & Professional Connections Panelists:
Richonda Pelzer, CPA, SHRM-SCP, PMP
Richonda leads the Mid-Atlantic Life Science industry at CliftonLarsonAllen, LLP with experience in finance, accounting, project management and human capital. She thrives on being a connector, lifelong-learner, teacher and a conduit for organizations and individuals to achieve continuous growth. Motivated by intellectual curiosity and learning agility, she advises clients to optimize the performance of organizational assets through cost containment, revenue diversification, sustainability, acquisition, or restructuring.
Her growth is achieved by having an athlete’s mindset that focuses on “one more”- at the verge of physical and mental exhaustion, she strives for one more rep, one more pull-up, one more jump-shot, one more encouraging word, one more innovative idea. Then we rejoice, rest, recovery, relax, and repeat.
She is licensed as a CPA, SHRM-SCP and PMP, holding a BBA in both Finance and Real Estate from Temple University and an MBA in Finance from Philadelphia University. Richonda is passionate about teaching university level finance courses, her Philadelphia sports teams, coaching basketball, and having a positive impact on her community.
Abrar Hashmi
Abrar Hashmi is the Chief Agile evangelist and Founder of Agile Brains Consulting Inc. He has led multiple value-based delivery transformations in various Fortune 500 companies and has coached thousands of leaders in over sixty cities and has enabled organizations to embrace a culture of fearlessness and innovation. Abrar holds numerous Agile certifications (SPC, RTE, CLP, ICP-FDO, ICP-IDO, ICP-EPO, ICP-ATF, ICP-ACC, CSM, TBR) and believes in building the new generation of Agile leaders. Abrar has grown Agile Brains to be one of the fastest growing private companies in USA and has won numerous awards on Forbes, Philadelphia Business Journal, INC, USPAACC and other publications.
For more information about Summer Business Boot Camp contact:
Dr. Oscar Holmes IV
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs
BSB Room 332
(856) 225-6593
Oscar.HolmesIV@rutgers.edu
