Going for the Gold: Senior Alicia Thomas recently scored a full-time posi­tion with her first choice employer. Photo Courtesy of Alicia Thomas

Senior Alicia Thomas will start her pro­fes­sional career as an account exec­u­tive in the sales depart­ment with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Thomas, an adver­tis­ing major from Greenville, knew she wanted to work with a pro­fes­sional sports orga­ni­za­tion and her first choice was the Cavaliers due to their award-winning mar­ket­ing and sales team.

Thomas said she applied for a tem­po­rary posi­tion, but the direc­tor of inside orga­ni­za­tional sales called her and wanted her as a per­ma­nent sales­per­son. After a three-hour inter­view, the direc­tor called her back while she was dri­ving home and told her “it was the fastest deci­sion we’ve ever made.”

“They were my num­ber one and I kind of put all my eggs in one bas­ket hop­ing that I would get it and lucky enough, I did,” said Thomas.

Thomas began work­ing with the Ferris State University Athletics Department event staff as a fresh­man. She secured the posi­tion before her classes even began nearly five years ago. As a sopho­more, Thomas was pro­moted to ath­let­ics pro­ducer and has held the posi­tion ever since.

Thomas pro­duces all the home foot­ball and hockey games for the ath­let­ics depart­ment. She said her duties include coor­di­nat­ing when the band plays, orga­niz­ing the national anthem, and feed­ing infor­ma­tion to the P.A. announcer through­out the games. She said she does the lit­tle things to keep the game run­ning smoothly.

Last sum­mer, Thomas served as an adver­tis­ing account intern and helped the ath­let­ics depart­ment increase its rev­enue by $65,000. She attrib­uted the acqui­si­tion of her new posi­tion to the work expe­ri­ence she has had at Ferris.

“If I didn’t have the expe­ri­ence with the ath­let­ics depart­ment, I wouldn’t have been able to even be con­sid­ered for the job that I got,” said Thomas.

Ferris Associate Athletics Director Jon Coles said Thomas is more dri­ven and more com­mit­ted than the aver­age student.

“She is extremely pro­fes­sional and takes great pride in her work,” said Coles. “She takes own­er­ship in what she does and does it very well.”

Thomas said Ferris has given her valu­able work expe­ri­ence that is already pay­ing off in her pro­fes­sional career. She said she wants stu­dents to real­ize that a degree from Ferris State University can get you where you want to go right out of col­lege, as long as you work hard.

Thomas said, “Everyone says it’s just a Ferris degree, but they don’t real­ize that Ferris can really put you where you want to be.”