Steven Spriggs, Role Model Millennial

Steven Spriggs, Texas A&M '13

I first met Steven Spriggs a year ago when he was a senior at Eisenhower High School in Lawton, Oklahoma, applying for admission to Cornell University. As an alumna involved with the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassadors Network (CAAAN), I am privileged to meet and to recruit many promising young men and women for my alma mater.

Steven and I met at Starbucks, and my immediate impression was that he is a young Barack Obama: earnest, responsible, and highly intelligent. He was a National Merit Finalist, an Eagle Scout, and he was also selected to participate in the Leadership Education and Development Program in Business (LEAD) at the University of Virginia’s top-ranked Darden School of Business. A partnership of some of the top corporations and business schools in the country, LEAD’s mission is to build “a talented and diverse workforce ready for the global business environment.” Each summer, a highly diverse group of academically gifted and multi-talented high school juniors is selected for the program.

Despite his leadership roles and state and national awards, Steven is a humble young man from a former military family with a preternatural awareness of the world around him. He described to me how he helped organize a fundraiser to draw attention to the increasing number of people left homeless―students spent the night in the high school auditorium, confined to the living space of a cardboard box. This was a vivid portrayal of destitution, but one that I would have expected from a student attending an urban high school, not in America’s heartland where overt neediness is often invisible.

Given the questions he asked, the interview lasted an hour and a half.

When I next heard from Steven, it was to let me know he had been accepted to Cornell and the University of Chicago, but that Texas A&M had offered him a financial aid package that paid for all his college expenses. He would be able to graduate debt-free and to attend college closer to home. He asked if he could stay in touch with me, and I agreed to be his mentor.

In his first semester as an honors business major at Texas A&M, Steven would put his lessons into practice by advising me on how to tweak the StrangeTango.com: Life as Art website blog for relevance and engagement. Many of his recommendations were implemented when the new blog design launched in November 2009. Among the innovations inspired by his feedback was a platform on the website that featured Millennial voices, written for and by his generation. Ultimately, I designated 12 platforms as the 12 Muses, or components of my worldview. These include:

Showcase ― interview essays inspired by passion, innovation, and leadership
Connectors ― individuals and concepts that link our world
Millennials ― written for and by the digital generation
Multicultural ― written for and by the multicultural community

Steven also featured StrangeTango.com as part of an honors business presentation on the innovation wave sweeping America. Relative unknowns are producing unique and high-caliber projects through sheer resourcefulness―optimizing skills, talents, and resources with little or no monetary investment. Steven took the instructor and class on a tour of the website citing the site’s creativity, innovation, and leadership.

I was so impressed that I appointed Steven the permanent guest editor of the Millennials platform when we met for lunch over winter break. I had a number of questions I wanted to ask him for his very own Showcase interview, but in his thoughtful style, Steven asked if he could write down his answers instead. So here, I present his responses on educating the next generation of business leaders.

If the business and political leaders of the future are as selfless, pragmatic, inclusive, and innovative as Steven Spriggs, I see hope for intelligent solutions to the urgent problems facing our world.   

How would you describe yourself as a person?

“I consider myself an active person. In that, I mean that I like to get things done. I also like to do things well. I believe that whatever I do, I should put in serious effort. I try to have a sense of purpose in my actions. A large part of that is that I don’t think I should be vested entirely in myself. I don’t deny that I’m self interested like everyone else, but I think that I should not let my self interest prevent me from helping others.

It may sound a bit cliché, but I feel that we can accomplish more as a community if we’re willing to give back, whether that be time, money, skills, etc. As serious as I’ve made myself sound, I still like to sit back and relax too.”

What influenced your decision to study business?

“At the heart of the matter, business is a practical field. Like the law, it’s a language that people should seek to understand because it plays such a critical role in our society. There are so many talented people who are unable to handle their own agendas simply because they do not understand simple business concepts or how to appeal to business people.

Furthermore, business is not just about math or crunching numbers. It’s also about communication, professionalism, and leadership. As far as fields of study go, business encompasses many important skills and lessons.”

How will business concepts change in the near and long-term future?

“This is difficult to answer. As far as general changes, I think we’re going see a shift to more international consideration. By international consideration, I mean that we’re going to consider more ways to serve those at the bottom of the pyramid. I had the chance to see C.K. Prahalad speak about this and it’s really fascinating. In targeting that demographic, we provide those people with products and services they need, we’re challenged to make affordable innovations to existing items, and we still do well from a profit standpoint. I think that the second point about innovation is really important because everyone benefits.

In catering to people who can’t afford to be wasteful, we have to find ways to create sustainability, which is a huge issue right now. I think it’s easy for some to dismiss this global approach, but that’s foolish.

Netbooks were supposed to provide computer access for people in developing countries at a low price. Now, however, they’re becoming more and more popular here in the United States. They’re not stopping people from buying other laptops or desktop computers. They’re augmenting the existing business base.”

How is the new generation of business leaders being trained and educated?

“From what I understand, there’s a much higher emphasis on ethics and responsibility than there has been in the past. There’s just a greater focus now on the need for business leadership to have, understand, and follow guidelines without cutting corners.

At Mays Business School, integrity has always played a large role due to Texas A&M’s commitment to its honor code and being a university of values. This is something that I believe is becoming more and more prevalent.

Furthermore, many classes are also looking at less tangible skills that are necessary to create effective leaders. Do you understand what it means to lead? Do you know your talents? More importantly, do you know your values and the values of your community? Can you self reflect on important matters? I may not be an expert on past educational standards, but I do understand that this is not a world where we can solely be technically competent.”

What are your thoughts on Facebook and social media?

“Well, I think the greatest use of all these various sites is that news and ideas are much more accessible and easily spread. I think the way one views these sites also has to do with age group. My friends and I think Facebook is cool because we can keep in contact and keep an eye on people we know (known to my peers as “creeping”). It’s cool that we can see people we knew in elementary school, but it’s more of a small thing of interest in that regard.

For older people, I think the reconnection is huge. Having known someone for 40 years makes reconnecting much more meaningful, I would think. Facebook is a great way for us to share whom we are and what we’re about while still maintaining privacy—in the sense that we control how much we want to share. I don’t see Facebook falling out of favor like MySpace and LiveJournal did.

As far as Twitter goes, I’m not really sure what to think. Personally, I’m not interested in Twitter. It seems more like a fun, little toy, as opposed to a fun, interactive, engaging site like Facebook. Facebook is 3D while Twitter is 2D. Who wants a flat persona?”

What is your wish for the future? How do you see your future unfolding?

“I want to see a greater number of people my age and younger taking an active role to improve their communities. I think there’s this rampant attitude of ‘I can name the problems, but I won’t attempt to do anything about them.’ Really, I just want to see more progress with current problems. Sometimes, the answer is just that regular people need to take action rather than just people at the top (another bottom of the pyramid approach).

As for my own future, I have an idea of what I’d like to do, but it’s still fluid. I plan on going to law school, but I definitely will try to explore different career fields as opportunities present themselves. Ideally, my job would involve business, law, and government and I’d still be involved with Kiwanis International. I think I’ll probably work in the public service sector.”