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A year after graduating from the Monterey Institute, Heather Bessette (MBA/MAIEP ’12) is celebrating her promotion to associate marketing manager at Rosen Convergence Marketing, a Portland company dedicated to “help purpose-driven companies do more good with less.” Combining researching sustainable companies and practices with marketing perfectly fits Heather‘s professional ambitions and the skills she gained through her degree: “I couldn’t be more happy to use both aspects of my degree,” says Heather, who attended Middlebury College as an undergraduate.

“‘Be the Solution‘ rings so true to me,” Heather says referring to the Institute‘s motto. She is doing her part by working to promote socially and environmentally responsible companies effectively. Originally from upstate New York, Heather says that she visited Portland to participate in the NET Impact conference in 2011 as part of the active and fell in love with the city. “I decided that Portland was the place for me,” she says, happily adding that the city is “a real hotspot for sustainable thinking.”

So in short; dream career – check, dream location – check. Heather’s advice to goal-driven graduate school students is to “get involved with as many projects as you can while still in school.” It really makes a difference, she says, to take advantage of every opportunity to apply what you are learning. Picking the right projects also matters and she says that she draws a lot on her capstone: “I didn’t know how real it was until I started working in the field.”