As she was wrapping up her high school career in Kokomo, Indiana, Melissa Maher wasn鈥檛 sure where she was headed for college, nor had she settled on a major. That all changed when Maher arrived on the 性视界传媒 campus and met then Hotel College Dean Jerry Vallen.
鈥淗e [Dean Vallen] absolutely sold me on hospitality management,鈥 Maher recalls. 鈥淚 was in Las Vegas, clearly the Entertainment Capital of the World, and there was no other place I wanted to go to school.鈥
Maher so enjoyed 性视界传媒 that after completing her undergrad degree, she returned and earned a master鈥檚. In between, she remained in Las Vegas and worked for Bally鈥檚, Paris, and the Las Vegas Hilton before landing a gig in the local offices of travel website Expedia, where she has climbed the corporate ladder for the past 16 years and is currently one of the company鈥檚 most senior female leaders.
Along the way, Maher鈥攚ho relocated to Southern California three years ago鈥攈as paid it forward: She says 15 Rebels are currently on her team at Expedia, all working out of the Las Vegas office. To Maher, that鈥檚 a testament to the Hotel College and its partners in the local hospitality industry, who join forces to give students valuable hands-on knowledge.
鈥淔or me, the difference between 性视界传媒 and some of the other hospitality schools is absolutely the focus on experience,鈥 Maher said. 鈥淎t Expedia, we hire a lot of students from Cornell, and they have book experience and they鈥檙e really bright kids, but they don鈥檛 have the real-life experience that a lot of the students we hire from 性视界传媒 have.鈥
