 So I know actually before we get dive in we actually just hired a student to be graduate from Fairfield over at Kayak and super exciting to have a stag on board but also super depressing to hear about all the fun she's having in her senior year so it's very nostalgic. So as the sheet says my name is Daniel Guzman I graduated in 2008 and I'm currently an account manager at Kayak we're based in Stanford. I realized I'm a sophomore and a junior I don't like reading I rather just go to the beach and hang out with my friends something like this is not working. So I go and find my advisor and I literally we have like a two-hour heart-to-heart we're talking about what you love who are you and we're diving in and you know it kind of just ties back to what my mom being Colombian my dad being Chilean and I like their cultures and the way Colombia works Chile works and different economies so we land on you know maybe international studies is for you. I'm like yeah sounds interesting. We give it a shot and I fall in love. I believe the teacher right then was Terry Ann Jones I don't know if she's still here. So we connected really well as teaching student and her class was great. I remember writing my capstone and I did it on Columbia and I did Columbia back in the 90s I don't know if any of you know it was terrible you know the drug trade violence it was probably the most dangerous place you can go to at a certain point in time but in 2008 it was completely different but everyone had that stigma of Colombia's terrible it's terrible it's terrible. So my capstone paper was progress in Colombia through leadership and highlighted how Colombia is different it's worth going to check out it's actually a big tourist destination and loved everything about it great class and it was a great ending to my Fairfield career and then I graduate and in 2008 that's when the economic collapse happened so again not having any really resources at home like how do I network how do I get here and there I didn't really have any luck finding a good job opportunity kind of stroke out left and right so I ended up managing a restaurant for a year back in my hometown of Tarotown in Washington County as a 22-23 year old working 70-80 hours a week Friday Saturdays when your friends are out having fun not ideal it is what it is you know you kind of just make the best of any situation and you learn you adapt you take in everything you can our head cook was from El Salvador so my Spanish skills came very much and handy when there was issues with customers not happy or the staff and understanding what he's saying I definitely was a godsend to the restaurant did that for a year I kept in touch with the Fairfield Career Center Kathleen Borgman if any of you know her love her send my best to her she always we always emailed we always kept in touch and she put me into my next job opportunity which was in South Norwalk for a satire publication I was doing some e-commerce was doing some social media kind of a jack-of-all-trades two years there wouldn't say it was my passion I took the next step and I became a recruiter so essentially being in sales I never thought I'd be in sales gave it a shot you know it just wasn't for me so at that point I was 20 years old I'm like I need to find something that I love I'm passionate about through my contacts at the recruiting firm I landed at kayak in two weeks I'm gonna reach my four-year anniversary of kayak and as of recently I've been asked to lead the LADAM team for kayak Latin America is a really big focus for kayak right now we started with the sale now we have Argentina Columbia Mexico Peru and Chile so in the course of a year and a half to a year you know we've grown grown tenfold in Latin America the team went from one to about six and kayaks only 400 people so to go from one to six in a year it's pretty big growth for just one specific team in kayak so that kind of takes my whole journey full circle where yeah I got a minor in Spanish my mom and dad Chilean Colombian I did a great major international studies where I got to write on Columbia but didn't really actually apply my language skills and then just through networking discovering what I love and chasing a passion I landed a kayak and it was a great opportunity a great company great people and really a company that wants to make the travel industry better not just here in the US but globally all those pieces really came together and now spearheading the growth of Latin America really engaging with clients in Spanish from the era Mexico to the Tams to all the major travel players in that region it kind of like I said brings a full circle where if you apply yourself your network you discover what you really passionate about and work towards getting that passion filled in some of those things that Fairfield really taught me and helped me to land where I was there were some bumps of the road some hearts broken in the case of my dad but seeing what I'm doing now it's it's an opportunity that I'm really thankful for it Fairfield was an amazing four years in my life it flew by if you like and I hope that all of you are really taking it in as much as you can expose yourself to different opportunities meet new people we're all gonna make our inner circle of great friends but you know reach out to a new group you never know who you might meet four or five years down the road that you guys can reconnect they can land you next opportunity or your next love interest or anything in between yeah that's me so thank you