Senior Project Report

Currently my email is not working so I am posting my report here.  If it starts working soon I will also email you a copy of the report.

            For my Senior Project, I wanted to learn some aspects of the business world, and how to start/operate a successful business.  My sponsor for his project was Mr. Rick Doody, who is Chairman & Founder of BDI, he is better known for creating the restaurant chains of Brio and Bravo.  Through the duration of the project, Mr. Doody gave me three different types of businesses to experience.  The first was at his office in Chagrin Falls where they develop new Brio and Bravos all over the country.  The time I spent at his office is probably when I learned the most about business peoples interactions with one another while working on deals.  In this setting I was not able to participate very often because they were dealing with very large business deals.  Most of my time in his office was spent sitting in on meetings, and talking one on one with the other people that worked in his office.  By no means would I say that from my experience I would be able to do a successful business deal, but I do now have an understanding as to what people are talking about in certain topics.  The second business I experienced was the restaurant business.  I spent seven days working in Mr. Doody’s newest restaurant, Cedar Creek Grille.  Over those seven days I worked in several different positions, including host, busser, prep chef, and accountant.  I would work the lunch rush with the other employees at the restaurant, usually following around the person for half the day and then working on my own the rest of the day.  I really enjoyed working in the restaurant because I was always busy with the job, and it also gave me a real world experience of dealing with patrons.  The final business I experienced was a construction company.  While my project was taking place Mr. Doody was remodeling his house, and he had the builder who has built some of his restaurants working on the house.  I spent two days shadowing the head builder, Scott.  He kept telling me his main job was to make sure everyone is doing their jobs correctly.  He would take laps around the house, make sure everyone was working hard, and jump in when he could to help someone out.  I think Mr. Doody was an excellent sponsor for my project.  He taught me a lot about business by both talking to me about it and letting me experience it in many different forms. 

            Throughout my three-week project I learned that the answer to my essential question was experience.  Not just experience in being the boss, but experience in every job that it will take to run the business.  Mr. Doody used an expression that is used in the restaurant business.  He said that the owner of a successful restaurant will be shaking the hand of the mayor with one hand and have plunger in the other hand.  By this means there is glamour that comes along with having a successful restaurant, but it took a lot of hard work in every place to get there. 

            My suggestion for future projects is to pick something you have an interest in for the future, but also something that is enjoyable to do.  If I had to sit in the office all day everyday I would’ve gotten bored very quickly and probably wouldn’t have paid attention as well.  Getting to go to other locations really made it a great project for myself.  I think the Project Committee should make an attempt for more students to have a project that gets them out and about.

            My biggest take away form the project was the real world experience of working.  In the restaurant I had a job to do everyday, and if I didn’t do it correctly it would’ve created more work for the other employees, so I learned quickly how to do everything I could to help.  It was also very nice to be able to interact with patrons and to see how I was doing based on their reactions to how I did my job.