Westinghouse Semiconductor Division wanted to develop rising employees, so they selected Woodson “Woody” Savage III for the first-ever Executive MBA class at Pitt in 1973. “At age 29, I could not fully foresee the benefits I would gain through participating in the program,” he says.
He walked into the Executive MBA program with seven years of experience at Westinghouse and a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. One thing he was certain of – he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life being an engineer.
Insights and Career Growth
As he moved up the corporate ladder in various roles, what he learned in the Executive MBA program proved valuable.
“I gained a tremendous insight not only from the curriculum and the teachers but my fellow students (some of them were 50 or 60 years old) who were able to share their tremendous work experiences in our classroom discussions. The insight I gained from these interactions served me well for the rest of my career.”
His career spanned over 47 years with roles beyond engineering: 13 years with Westinghouse Semiconductor Division, 10 years with Ranco Controls, then 23 years with American Electric, from which he retired in 2013 as the director of e-commerce.
Now that he’s retired, he has self-published books about advertising and customer service along with a memoir and is researching his family tree. He proudly counts himself among the 3,000 professionals who have graduated from the EMBA program within the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business.