Answers

Material

• The move from Corrigan co-op to VoltYard, triggered by fielding the co-op's first calls from fleet owners asking how to electrify Gives your story a single thread: utility side, then builder side, next the business side.
• Senior PM role leading 4 PMs on 14 depots ($23M), plus the transformer pre-order you proposed Shows where you are now and that you already push past execution into business decisions.
• Essay 2 goal: run a company building and financing charging for Midwest school bus and transit fleets Lets you land on why an MBA without a separate speech.

The angle

Your arc is unusually coherent: you've sat at the utility, then the contractor, and you keep hitting the same wall, which is the money and contract decisions. Rachel was an industrial engineer who ran a plant floor, then moved into strategy, so a crisp engineer-to-strategist thread with a people focus will register. Keep it to about 90 seconds and headline first, which is the habit Dana pushed you to build.

Talking points

1. Open with Joliet and the motel front desk, briefly, as where you learned to deal with people
2. Industrial engineering at UIUC into Corrigan: load forecasts for 9 substations in farm country
3. Name the fleet-owner calls at the co-op as the reason you jumped to VoltYard
4. Now: 4 PMs, 14 depots, contract-to-energized cut from 11.5 to 8.9 months
5. Close on the lost 98% uptime bid as the gap that points to an MBA and Kellogg

To think about

Can you say in one line what kind of person you are with others, not just what jobs you held?

Avoid: Over-explaining when nervous, the habit you admit to. Don't walk through every bullet; give the thread and let her pick what to dig into.

Material

• The lost transit-agency bid: you refused to sign 98% uptime, proposed 95% plus maintenance training, lost to a 99% promise Shows the exact gap: you were right on operations but couldn't model a better deal that won.
• Transformer-at-signing proposal and the CFO pushback that settled at a $1.4M inventory cap Proof you're already making business calls, and that finance is where the argument gets decided.
• Financial Accounting at Harold Washington College and the GMAT retake from 615 to 655 Shows you've already started closing the gap and know its limits.

The angle

Your gap has moved from engineering to business: as a Senior PM you now argue over inventory risk, pricing and contract terms, and the uptime bid showed you could see the right answer but not sell it in numbers. Rachel made the same move from plant operations to strategy, so be concrete about what you couldn't do, not vague about 'leadership skills'.

Talking points

1. Open with the transit-agency proposal: 98% vs. your 95% plus training, and the bid lost to 99%
2. Name what you couldn't build: the deal model that would have shown leadership a winning version
3. Contrast with the $1.4M transformer cap, where you had 31 projects of data and won the argument
4. Why now: Senior PM since Jul 2025, 4 PMs and $23M under you, and decisions above you are about pricing, financing and public budgets
5. Mention accounting class and GMAT retake as proof you've started, not finished

To think about

Beyond the uptime bid, is there a second moment, maybe a financing or pricing conversation at VoltYard, where you felt outside your depth?

Avoid: Don't retell Essay 2 word for word or relitigate that you were right on 98%; the point is the skill you lacked, not who was right.

Material

• Short-term: strategy or business-operations role at a fleet-electrification or energy-infrastructure company Builds directly on 14 depots across IL, IN, WI and knowing which contracts go wrong.
• Long-term: run a company that builds and finances charging for school buses and transit in the Midwest Grows out of the Indiana district that had a grant, a bus order and no one who understood the utility side.
• Corrigan Co-op: answering its first calls from fleet owners about electrifying Shows the goal started early and is rooted in the utility side, not borrowed.

The angle

The interviewer only has your resume, so draw the straight line yourself: co-op utility planning, then VoltYard delivery, then deciding which markets and contracts to pursue, then building and financing for public fleets. Rachel plans where a health system builds and what it stops doing, so speak about the strategy role as choosing, not just executing.

Talking points

1. Start with the Corrigan fleet-owner calls as the origin
2. Short-term: deciding which markets and contracts to pursue, not only how to build them; tie to your 14 depots
3. Long-term: Midwest school-bus and transit charging that is built and financed together
4. Anchor with the Indiana district: grant, 26 buses, no one on the utility side
5. What kind of companies would you target? Name 2-3 types, or real firms you know

To think about

Which specific companies or types of firms would hire you post-MBA for the strategy role, and what does the financing piece of your long-term company actually look like?

Avoid: Keep the long-term goal concrete without overclaiming a detailed business plan you can't defend under follow-up; also don't drift into the essay story at length.

Material

• Senior PM, Fleet Depots: leading 4 PMs across 14 depot projects ($23M) in IL, IN, WI Shows what you own now versus what your PMs own, which the bullet alone can't convey.
• Weekly call with interconnection engineers at 3 utilities who don't report to VoltYard A concrete slice of your week that shows how you work with people outside your control.
• Corrigan co-op: 10-year load forecasts for 9 substations, Python/SQL Gives the contrast between analyst-style work and running people and projects.

The angle

Rachel ran night shifts and has an industrial engineering degree, so she'll follow the field detail but will be listening for where your time actually goes. Show the shift from building forecasts alone at Corrigan, to running depots as a PM, to now spending your days unblocking 4 PMs and utility engineers. Make it clear what you decide and what you hand off.

Talking points

1. Corrigan first, briefly: forecasts for 9 substations, the farm-member survey as part of the job
2. PM role: what a week on one of the 9 depots looked like, from site, crews and utility to the customer
3. Now: how you split time across 14 projects and 4 PMs, and which calls you keep for yourself
4. The standing utility call: why it's on your calendar and what happens on it
5. Hiring: 22 interviews, 2 hires, and the rewritten onboarding checklist as part of the job

To think about

What does a typical Monday look like for you now: where do the hours go, and which decisions only you can make?

Avoid: Your essay names over-explaining when you're nervous. Give each role in about 30 seconds, headline first, and let her ask for more.

Material

• Answering the co-op's first calls from fleet owners asking how to electrify This is the actual trigger for your move to VoltYard, a deliberate pull rather than drift.
• Choosing a rural co-op in Rensselaer after an IE degree You need to give your own reason for starting there; this is the first move she'll ask about.
• PM to Senior PM in July 2025 Shows you stayed and grew rather than hopping jobs.

The angle

Your moves follow one thread: grid planning, then the fleets that put load on the grid, and next the business decisions about which projects to pursue. Make each move sound like a choice you made after seeing something specific, ending in the MBA gap from the lost 98% uptime bid.

Talking points

1. Why Corrigan in 2022: what drew you to utility system planning, which is your call to explain
2. What the grain-dryer outage and the $2.7M grant taught you about the grid side
3. The fleet-owner calls: what you noticed and why you wanted to be on the builder side
4. At VoltYard, earning the Senior PM role, then the lost bid showing the gap is commercial now
5. Bridge to a strategy role in fleet electrification

To think about

Why did you pick a rural co-op over other offers or engineering paths in 2022? Was there a personal or practical reason, for example staying near family in Illinois or Indiana?

Avoid: Don't make leaving Corrigan sound like escaping the outage. Keep it about the pull of fleet electrification.

Material

• Essay 1 lesson: influence without authority means making other people's jobs easier; Dana's feedback on 900-word updates Gives a self-aware style plus a known weakness the interviewer can test.
• Weekly call with interconnection engineers at 3 utilities, none reporting to VoltYard Shows the style in action beyond the essay story.
• Leading 4 PMs on 14 depot projects; rewrote onboarding checklist Shows how the style works with direct reports, not just partners.

The angle

Your style is built on leading people you don't manage: utility engineers, union electricians, district staff. Describe it in two or three traits you can prove, then admit the edge you're still working on (over-explaining when nervous). Rachel ran a 40-person night shift and will test whether your stories match the label.

Talking points

1. Name the style in a few words tied to the utility weekly call and the shared tracker idea
2. Contrast how it works with your 4 PMs versus the 3 utilities who owe you nothing
3. Give Dana's 'headline first' feedback as where the style came from
4. Name the current weakness: over-explaining under pressure, and how you catch it

To think about

How do your 4 project managers would describe you? Do you have a concrete example of coaching one of them?

Avoid: Don't recite Essay 1's last lines as your style; also avoid generic labels like 'servant leader' without a VoltYard example behind them.

Material

• Indiana school bus depot, 9 weeks late, August 2024 call to the transportation director Clear moment you stepped up with real struggles: no authority, angry client, late information.
• Daily 15-minute call with five parties and portable-charger fallback for six buses Concrete actions taken under pressure.

The angle

The struggle question is where you shine: you found out two weeks after your superintendent, your green-until-red report failed, and Dana told you that you defended the plan instead of the outcome. Own those struggles plainly, then show the shift to daily calls and a fallback rather than an apology.

Talking points

1. Set up: 26 electric buses, federal grant, transformer slipped June to late September
2. Name the struggle: nobody reported to you, and you learned of the slip two weeks late
3. Actions: daily call with five parties, anyone can mark at-risk; two portable chargers running six buses by week three
4. Hard feedback from Dana and what you changed in your updates
5. Result: energized Oct 4, director later referred a neighboring district

Avoid: Keep it to about 90 seconds; your own weakness is over-explaining, and this story has many details. Don't spin the delay as a win.

Material

• Cutting contract-to-energized time from 11.5 to 8.9 months via transformers ordered at signing A measurable success you led.
• Lead-time data from 31 past projects and the CFO negotiation to a $1.4M cap Shows the real drivers: data and compromise with finance.

The angle

The main reason wasn't only your idea; it was data from 31 projects plus a CFO willing to take risk once capped at $1.4M, and your PMs executing early orders. Credit those people specifically to show you understand what drove the result.

Talking points

1. Problem: 11.5 months average, transformers the bottleneck
2. Your evidence: lead-time data from 31 projects
3. CFO pushback on inventory risk and settling on $1.4M cap, approved Oct 2025
4. Result: 8.9 months across your 14 active depots
5. Main reason: name who else made it work—CFO, your 4 PMs, utility engineers on the weekly call

To think about

What exactly did your 4 PMs or the utilities do differently that made the faster timeline real?

Avoid: Don't claim the 2.6-month gain as yours alone, and know whether any transformer inventory sat unused—Rachel, a strategy director, may probe the risk.

Material

• Corrigan co-op: first load forecast underestimated grain-dryer load; feeder overloaded Oct 2022 harvest, 340 members out for 5 hours A clean miss that was yours alone, with a concrete fix and a step most people skip: going back to the crews to explain it.
• Rebuilt forecast method around a survey of 60 farm members Shows the change you made to how you work, not just an apology.
• Lost transit bid after refusing 98% uptime (Essay 2), as a backup A second example if asked for two, where the outcome fell short even though your call held up.

The angle

Your essay already spends the school-bus story, and the interviewer won't see it, but the co-op forecast is a cleaner failure because the error was in your own model, not a utility's delay. It shows you own a mistake, fix the method by going to the people who know (farmers), and face the people it hurt (the line crews). Rachel ran night shifts on a packaging line, so walking back to the feeder crews will register with her.

Talking points

1. Set it up fast: first-year associate engineer, 10-year forecasts for 9 substations, your first one missed grain-dryer load
2. Give the result plainly: Oct 2022 harvest, feeder overloaded, 340 members dark for 5 hours
3. What you got wrong in the method, and why: what did your data miss about how farms run at harvest?
4. The fix: survey of 60 farm members, rebuilt method; then going back to that feeder's crews to explain
5. Link forward: how talking to people on the ground before modeling shows up now at VoltYard (e.g., utility load data shared early)

To think about

What did the crews or Marcus Feeney actually say when you explained it, and did later forecasts with the new method hold up?

Avoid: Don't drift into the school-bus story by reflex, and don't soften the miss by blaming the data; say it was your assumption. Keep the engineering detail to one sentence.

Material

• West Ridge Cricket Club: treasurer and Saturday league organizer, grew league from 6 to 10 teams, negotiated field time with the Park District Proof you build and run communities outside work, which is exactly what clubs and student life need.
• The 15-minute daily five-party call and shared tracker from the Indiana school bus depot Shows the habit of running things nobody assigned you, which you can bring to study groups and club teams.
• Bilingual English/Spanish site-safety briefing and your weekly Spanish class since 2024 Shows you ask before you explain and adapt to the people in front of you, a concrete peer contribution.

The angle

Rachel has only your resume and cares how you work with people, so make contribution about specific behaviors rather than a list of clubs. Your cricket league and the daily call you set up show you organize people who don't report to you. Tie that to one or two named Kellogg outlets: Board Fellows, an energy or sustainability club, and the field view from depots and the co-op that most of the 32% from consulting won't have.

Talking points

1. Open with the cricket league: 6 to 10 teams, Park District field negotiation, the treasurer role
2. Name what you'd actually run at Kellogg: an energy or sustainability club role, a field trek to a depot or utility?
3. Offer the field view: transformer lead times, talking with linemen and utility engineers, the Rensselaer co-op farm survey
4. Mention Kellogg Board Fellows and why: school and transit boards are your future customers
5. Close on study groups: you've been both the quiet engineer and the over-explainer

To think about

Which specific Kellogg clubs or events have you looked into, and what role would you want in them in year one?

Avoid: Don't recite Essay 2's contribution paragraph. And with Rachel, a Board Fellows alum, be specific about what you'd do there or skip it.