Jill O'Brien, FlyNYON (Helicopter Experiences) (#58)

We are. It's more than just a champ. We are inspirational creators, difference makers, world changers, and we are one community. Join alums, Jared and Ross as they uncover stories of Penn Staters and their unique professional and personal journeys. We are Penn State, and this is Lion Legacy. Oh, right. Episode number 58 of Lion Legacy. And my friends, as much as I enjoy seeing you on the podcast. I'm looking forward to seeing you this weekend. That's right. We're hanging out, Jared.

We are packing it up. Pack your bags, lying legacy. We're going on the road. Not really just we're going on the road for fun, We've mentioned it a couple of times here on the pod. we are going the Penn state Ohio state game in Columbus this weekend. So big matchup. I was looking back on something you had texted me a little while ago and you had mentioned like, I hope, if all, goes well, this will be a matchup of undefeateds. And you spoke it into truth, Jared. Here we are. Big matchup, man.

I am pumped. I'm pumped to hang out with you, John, Andy, and just our annual trip to an away game. And this is like the biggest away game we've been to. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, it would, the others were fun, but this is this has turned into, prime time, like big matchup, It's yeah, it'll be great. College game day is going to be there. Yeah. I mean, I'm, how are you feeling? I'm a little nervous. I must say, I'm always nervous. I'm nervous.

no matter what, I Maybe I wasn't so nervous with UMass, but you know, I'm always nervous. Ohio state is good. They find a way to win, I mean, we're good too, but yeah, it's going to, it's going to be tight. It's going to be tight. Let's hope next week on the podcast, we'll recap the story. it'll be a fun trap and we'll come away with a W yeah. Well, I'm sure we'll have fun regardless. It's just, outside of the game, but yeah, coming away with a, getting out of there with a W will be huge.

That's true. and, just a quick aside here. We mentioned that we're going to see our buddy Andy this weekend. Unfortunately, his mom passed away last week, Marianne. Andy's been a listener of 57, this will be number 58 episodes. He listens to it all. He's a great friend of ours.

we want to make sure that we dedicate this episode to his mom, Marianne, who is also a Penn Stater class of 1973, a teacher in the community, and really just nice to see all the words of condolences that people left for Andy on Facebook, speaking about, how influential his mom. it was well said, Jared. Yeah. No, I mean, I would just repeat everything you said, he's a great, and he's a great supporter of the podcast here and a great friend.

And, we'll make sure to give him a big hug when we see him. Yeah, definitely. we'll have a cheers for Marianne this weekend. So let's talk about, Our podcast this week. So yeah, so we spoke with jill o'brien. She works for a company called nyon air in the new york city metro area really interesting company, aviation services they provide open door photo flights, aerial production, all kinds of cool stuff. we'll get into it in the pod.

we talk about helicopters and we talk about photography, Jared in this episode, which is just a really interesting, juncture of topics. but she knows a lot about both. which is really cool. Yeah. pretty unique experience. I've been on a helicopter a few times. I will say a few times, a few times, a few times, a few times, never open, open door experience. I don't think I can do that. So, but I've been on it a few times, which has been really cool. always enjoy it. And, always a great experience.

So really cool to hear about, Jill's experience and her role. Well, hold on. So you got to explain. So where were you on a helicopter and for what purpose I actually, I've never been on a helicopter in the U S when, back in the day when I was working for Lance Armstrong cycling team, when we were in Europe for the race, a lot of times, I would be with our sponsors and we would fly from, different places from the start of the race to the finish of the race.

Cause that could be, Yeah. four or five, six hours by, by car. Sure. so, a few times we'd go up, which is just a majestic cause you're flying over the mountains. this one time I will say the pilot obviously knew what he was doing, but he, he came up over the mountain and then kind of MacGyver down. None of us knew that he was going to do this. So all of a sudden, right, you're like normal flight and then straight down. All of us in the back, screaming. And then of course he lifted back up.

So, a bit of a scary experience there, but, yeah, always enjoyable. Yeah. Cool. Well, I also was on a helicopter, but I told my story during the episode and the conversation with Jill. So I'm not going to repeat it. but anyway, really cool experience. We learned about, nigh on air, how she got to where she is, her background. She has a photography background, what her company does. A lot of cool things.

I mean, it was, I had no idea that such a company existed, but, it's really cool and it's something that, even from the consumer side, it's something that, all the listeners can take advantage of if they so choose the next time they're in New York City. So Jared, with that. we're going to hop in the chopper and we're going to take a flight with Jill O'Brien. RAAAWR RAAWR All right, let's welcome Jill O'Brien, a 2013 graduate with a degree in photography.

During her time at Penn State, Jill was a member of the Yearbook and Valley Magazine. Currently, she is the Chief of Staff at Nyonair, an aviation services company that provides open door Photo experience flights, aerial production services, transportation, private charters, and branded media collaborations. So cool. And so very exciting to have you with us online. Legacy jail. Thank you guys so much. I'm excited to be here. Nice to meet you here, Jill. so let's get the easy one out of the way.

I assume it's safe to say that you don't have a fear of heights or flying. ironically, I don't love heights, but definitely learned to over the years. but flying in helicopters is a little different than like standing on top of the empire state building, you're moving, it's more like being on a commercial jet than a cliff, so it doesn't bother me so much. Makes sense. That actually was where we were gonna go, Nick.

So before we're gonna get to your job in a moment, but, Jared and I are gonna guess that most of our listeners have not ever been in a helicopter. I actually have, so Jared, I don't know if you knew that, but I did not. I actually have as well. Okay. There you go. So, we'll, so maybe we're, I don't, maybe we should assume more people have been in helicopters. I don't know. Anyway, but Jill, so give us a little more color here.

describe the experience and how it might be different from a plane, right? Most people have been on an airplane. How is it different than helicopter?

Yeah, completely different. no runway, you're going straight off the ground, not speed up and gradually kind of lift. that's definitely the biggest difference. obviously the way they work is also completely different. You have a rotor system. Orange is really to a plane. they're also used for really different things. So, kind of, you sort of broached the topic in the intro, but we offer a wide array of aerial services, and that's partially because helicopters can fly.

forward and back, side to side, much more maneuverable than an airplane. they can also land in much tighter spots. Again, you don't need that runway. So really nice for private charter. You can land on somebody's front lawn if you have permission.

and that's why, charter is so popular because New York to the Hamptons is probably the best analogy where like you want to fly a short distance that would take you a very long time to drive because of the traffic, but we can go there direct, three times as fast as a car can. So, experience wise, I would say. They're not as fast as planes, but much smaller. So it feels like you're going pretty fast.

And the, the key difference is no runway, like vertical lift straight off the ground, less than two minutes. You could be at 2000 feet. So it's pretty cool. And New York to Hamptons is what from a time wise in a helicopter? 30, 40 minutes. And by car, it would be, what, two plus hours? Four hours, I don't know. Depends on the day. Depends on the day, exactly. True. I would say, like, anywhere between three and five.

A couple times I've driven from New York to the Hamptons, it felt like four hours. Well, the reason that you mentioned is exactly why I was on a helicopter. So I went, the one time was when my wife and I were on our honeymoon. So we went to St. Lucia and where the airport was situated as compared to the resort. The travel agent that we were working with said, well, look, you can take a van, right?

Like a shuttle and it goes through these windy roads and it's I don't know, two hours, whatever the timeframe was, or you can take a helicopter ride. one way and, it's just think of it as like an excursion. And I'm like, yeah, sign me up. And it was really cool. Yeah. Great choice. great choice. I actually liken it to, for those that haven't been on a helicopter, it's, it's almost like just the movement feels like you're in a car. I thought, right?

you don't really feel as when you're in a plane and the plane goes to take off, you kind of get pushed back in your seat, right? You feel it more, less when you're in the air, but when you land, you realize how fast the plane is going at it. I didn't notice that with the helicopter just felt like the car movement to me. I agree with that. It's a good observation. And it's really cool because you're sitting right there next to the pilot or right behind the pilot, which. don't get in a plane.

Yeah, you can see what's going on. Yeah, very cool. So tell us how do you land such a cool gig?

I found my job on Instagram the ages ago now I'll be there 10 years next October, which I really can't believe. So it was 2014, Instagram was kind of the one one photo app, no ads, filters, like no video. and I was doing a lot of work in New York City. I had just graduated from Penn State, obviously. It was kind of milking all the connections that I had doing a lot of freelance stuff. I was shooting for this socialite magazine, it's called Millennium.

So like a lot of Bravo stars and things of that nature. and ironically, one of the photo shoots for that magazine was in a helicopter with a different operator. So I kind of got my feet wet.

With that, and then I started working for this commercial studio in New Jersey and that magazine that I had used to shoot for was circulating a lot of my pictures, a lot of people were posting them on social media, that was sort of my intro to like business side of Using Instagram, not just posting pictures of my dog. So, one of those people didn't influence her collaboration with someone who was flying with the company that I currently work for a lot.

So she was posting all these pictures of her feet, at the side of a helicopter with the city underneath, I'm like, what's going on there. So obviously I started following the company and then about a month later, they posted, they were looking for interns. I wasn't super happy where I was at the time. I didn't think there was a lot of opportunities to really grow. I was a photo assistant, Making nothing and didn't think that I was taking the next step anytime soon.

So I'm like, ah, hell I'll apply for an internship. Why not? Right. So I applied for an internship, find out it's not quite an internship. Like this is a company that's a startup. They have no real employees. Like they're looking to hire their first paid person. so I'm 24, sitting in a room with three C level executives on the second interview and, they hired me on the spot. And I distinctly remember I, I cried the entire way home. I called my mom, she's, are you happy?

And I'm like, I don't know. It was too fast. who knows? do I want to work for a startup? I'm not sure. She's it's going to be fine. Just go for it. And nine years later, I've grown a hell of a lot with this company. and also. Gotten the opportunity to watch it become, an operation with tons of helicopters and lots of full time employees. And, we've done some incredible things.

So, the long and the short answer to your question is Instagram, but really it was, having that one experience that kind of gave me enough to talk about in the first interview. And I know you're on the business side, which we'll get into in a little bit, but did you start more from a. Photographer standpoint with them. Kind of, it was sort of all encompassing. So I think they were really just trying to hire like a bit of an office manager.

like it was like really just people with sweat equity at the time that I joined the company and they were. Beginning to talk about doing this kind of consumer brand. So we were getting out of the production world and into the, like tourist flight realm. So I think they thought, well, someone's got to be in the office if we're going to sell tickets. So at that time, it was a true startup. So I shot. A lot of high end production jobs, I also dealt with customers. I was keeping the CEO schedule.

I was doing everything working, seven days a week for three years. Like true, true startup world. but photography was much more a part of my job. then we started to hire people to do that specifically. And I was kind of, taking on more of a business role working very closely with the CEO. building on that and the kind of where you started to where you are today, right? your title currently is chief of staff, right?

Which we've heard in different contexts, but I imagine most people don't understand or have a true handle on what that means or entails. give us a little bit of this backstory, right? How did you get to the chief of staff level? And then what's, what's kind of in your, I'm sure big tool bag of responsibilities that you have.

Sure. Yeah. It's, back to that kind of true startup mentality. I, I sort of decided what I wanted to do. And that was, accepted very nicely. but there was sort of like this crossroads where I was serving as the general manager of the company. And our CEO who was involved in many ventures at the time was starting to shift his business. Yeah. Full time attention to nigh on air.

So at that moment, there was sort of this conversation of well, how are we going to lay out the company as crazy as that sounds? But that's what happens in startup world. you have your staff and you're trying to figure out, what role fits, what makes the most sense. To the outside world, like, how's it going to look on LinkedIn? It was a wild conversation, but, it sort of started as more of an executive assistant role.

And then as time progressed and our CEO was building out, like what was going to be his C suite, that, that title kind of just got floated at some point or another. So I think the misconception about the chief of staff role is it doesn't have all that much to do with the staff. It's more about, representing the. Chief executive officer. So really, at the crux of it, you're like a very, I'm a very high end executive assistant in a lot of ways.

But I also have, power on paper to speak on our CEO's behalf when he's not available. So it's a complicated role. I'm not the CEO of this company, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of power held in that role. I don't necessarily manage the staff the way our org chart is set up. There's no one between the CEO and our staff. And I kind of sit like on a branch to the right.

So it's sort of like an extension of him versus, a step below or above our managers that, actually run our company on the day to day. in a company that I worked for a better part of the last decade, the way they, again, this is big, Multibillion dollar big corporations, different than a startup, of course, but the way the chief of staff there was chief of staff was the one to make sure that all of the other functions that reported into the CEO were aligned, right?

I know Jared's going to kind of go down the strategy realm, but Like that, the chief of staff that I am, the context that I initially think of is, Hey, you've got your, let's say, I don't know, your chief marketing officer, your chief commercial officer, your CFO. And let's say you're, I don't know, your chief informant, whatever C level you want, the idea is that they're all aligned and the chief of staff would be the one to make sure that the other.

C-level executives are, and their functions are aligned with the c E O and just kind of be that one single point of contact as a filter and organizing point. But to your point in a different realm, like a C O O. So Jared, where were you gonna go? I think from also what I understand, that c E O is really setting the strategy. The chief of staff is coming on board to make sure. And help ensure that strategy is being carried out as well as working on, different projects. So it's interesting.

You hear different things in terms of the chief of staff role. And I guess it's one of those roles that depending on what the CEO needs, he kind of melds that position accordingly. It sounds like, yeah, I think that's very true. And the other.

I sort of advocated for that to be the title versus a COO title, aside from the fact that I was in my mid twenties at the time and didn't know if I necessarily was ready to take on a COO role was I was far more interested in working with him very closely and directly than I was, taking on a large chunk of responsibility in another. The piece of the company.

and that decision, I think, in the long run, he's an incredible entrepreneur that I've learned lots and lots from, but I don't know that I would have been afforded as much time to learn from him as I have been, with. with that title. Makes sense. All right. So let's talk a little bit about the product here. Right again. So, so nigh on, you've got your fleet of helicopters. We're talking about photo experiences, aerial production services. We're going to get into this a little more here, right?

So a good part of the business supports aerial photography and cinematography for commercial purposes. which is pretty cool on the surface there. Talk about the projects, right? what kind of stuff comes, across your desk? What kind of services in more specifically are, or type of projects is NIAM providing?

our most famous endeavor was probably the Wolf of Wall Street. I think most people have seen it, but the scene towards the end where, he sort of dives out of the helicopter was one of ours. the pilot that flew most of the aerial shots for that production, is a SAG pilot that was. One of the original sweat equity members of our company. Fantastic production. we've done, some features, a lot of commercials, so many things need aerial visuals of New York city.

So, everything from Tresemme commercials to, one year we were hired by Snapchat to hoist that snap bot. I don't know if you guys remember that it was like a vending machine for those Snapchat glasses. but they hoisted it up with Huey off of west 30th street. And then had another helicopter follow it and, take these wild videos of this snap, but dangling below, we've been hired to film cruise ships, docking in New York city. we do a lot of skydiving work, a lot of stuff with the Red Bull teams.

They dove into their soccer stadium last year. That was a cool shoot for me. I actually got to shoot that one. So I sat in the front of the helicopter and their three divers actually dove out. The back door right behind me. So I was hanging outside filming them each drop like one by one.

That was a pretty a lot of times I will shoot jobs myself, like just to kind of keep the rotation up, like that's a part of my career that I never really want to completely lose, like kind of that, creative skill. so if there is a job that's like particularly complicated, another skydiving job that we had was this all female team called highlight. They did, a jump into a cemetery in the Bronx last year and they hired two helicopters. So one to let the divers jump.

The second to shoot photo and video. And obviously that's a pretty. intense shoot. Like they're only going to jump once. So if you miss a shot, you miss a shot. So there are some jobs that I'll take on myself just because, I trust the skill a little more than, anyone else. we do all kinds of stuff, I guess is what I'm getting at, but. it ranges, like it could be super, super high on production. It could just be a one off occurrence.

I hate to say guys, the women, I feel like that's really cheesy. how do these folks find you? this is a pretty niche area and you're known as far as, in the. Cinematography, commercial making all that stuff. Right. I'm sure you've got a pretty company's got a pretty wide network there. Right. Exactly. I usually do ask people, we, we shot an episode of ABC bachelorette one year, they did a date, where they flew into the city. And that producer followed us on Twitter, which was a cool one.

So that was just sort of a one off, skydiving community is very niche. So, if you do a lot of work with one. famous skydiver, then everybody knows, okay, I'm going to call him for his helicopter people. and the production world, a lot actually does happen through SAG. So, we have SAG pilots on our payroll. they're part of a national directory. So occasionally they need the pilot and that leads to the helicopter, but there's all kinds of different ways. it's a very niche industry, but.

our biggest success in people finding us has been that social media presence. So, we started with Instagram, when you could. Gain hundreds of thousands of followers overnight. And there was no ad spend, in 2012. and we're able to grow a very large organic following. And that has led to a lot of opportunities, both in the production world and in our kind of consumer facing brand. I'm curious on the. commercial side of the business, right?

We're hearing more and more about drones, capturing photography, cinematography, when speaking to these companies, how are you guys positioning yourself so that people are saying, Hey, you should do a helicopter with human beings and not necessarily, footage captured on a drone.

Right. That changes kind of by the minute in today's day and age with all of the regulations. So for a while, commercial drone, cinematography over New York city wasn't really something that you could do. So you were sort of trapped into a helicopter. That's recently changed. I will say we've seen a big downfall in that portion of the business in the last five years, just with, drone footage becoming the quality that it is today.

that's also not an area of our business that we really put a lot of emphasis on. we're much, much more focused on our consumer facing brand. So the production jobs that come along, are, generally someone seeking us out. Like we don't really pitch that type of work very often. And on the consumer side, I was actually quite surprised. it's pretty reasonable to actually go up in a helicopter.

I think, most people may think, wow, I've got a shell out, thousands of dollars for this really cool experience over New York. Yeah, that's sort of how we built it. before we certainly weren't the very first company to do it, but traditionally. If you wanted to shoot from a helicopter with the doors open, you had to charter your own. So that was thousands and thousands of dollars.

And, social, again, social media kind of gave us the opportunity to, advertise breaking that up and crowdsourcing a flight. So, We can sell it by the seat, which is hundreds, not thousands, and make it much more accessible to a lot of people that want to do it. Yeah, I proposed to my wife actually last year. And when I went on your website, I was like, Oh, maybe I should have done a helicopter proposal. I don't think she would have been a big fan of it.

But I was like, Oh, this is definitely interesting. I'm sure you've seen your fair share of proposals. Hopefully, no one's You know, drop the ring right off, off the helicopter. But, you, did you say you have rules? You can't propose with the doors open, but most of the time you encourage, the person proposing do it before. They'll be so excited. And then you put the ring on your finger and you go and fly and you take this gorgeous photo of your hand with your new diamond. Nice background.

No, no loose objects. Yeah. Kind of a running internal joke that we have a hundred percent success rate on, the question being asked. No That's that is true. Any other special moments or unique stories you could share on the, probably the consumer side of the business? there's so much that goes on. I think the most exciting thing for our staff is, we do a lot of work with influencers and celebrities and often we know when they're going to come, but sometimes they just show up.

So we had, a Giants player fly in the last two weeks who didn't let us know, just bought a ticket and Popped in, we had Anthony Anderson, the comedian a few months ago, just again, buy a ticket and show up with lots of people from the bachelor and Bravo and things of that nature. So, everyone's always excited when someone recognizable walks. through the door. I've also done a lot of music videos, even like kind of amateur stuff. Like it's a really nice, thing.

And my opinion that we have made that price point like a bit accessible because everyone's a photographer cinematographer these days. if you're, you have a cell phone and a tick tock count, you're a producer practically. So, we're kind of making this What was once very high end content available to a lot of people. I was also seeing on the website, you could go on 4th of July and get an aerial view of the fireworks, which, for a pretty reasonable price, which I thought was cool too.

there's all these things like I never even thought to do that, but now that I know it exists, I'm like, well, that'd be fun. Yeah. 4th of July is wild. We sell out every year. 4th of July and New Year's Eve. Sure. Yeah. Big events that, it's a pretty cool vantage point. Very cool. All right. let's take a couple steps back. As we say, we're going to go back in time, right?

So you mentioned that, when you, in your post Penn state experience, you had been into photography, doing some freelance work. But how did your passion for photography, how did that come about?

I feel like this is not going to be a fantastic answer for you, but it came from. Maybe something that a lot of, college art majors experience where your parents call you and say you've got to get a job when you leave. So I don't know if I'm paying for a painting education. so that was my experience. So I was trying to figure out like, well, what can I do in this field? this, kind of creative world that makes me so happy. where I could make a living. So I thought about advertising.

I thought about P. R. and then I took a photography class sort of on a whim, like needing three more credits and Penn State, affords a lot of opportunities to do some pretty cool things. But particularly in the photo world, the College of Arts and Architecture has a fantastic studio professors that are exhibiting all over the world.

they also have, world class football team where you can go and learn how to shoot sports and concerts and, so much comes to that campus that has really true real world ties, even Valley Magazine, I mean, I was shooting full fledged magazine spreads when I was, 19 years old. and that's, that all has to do with being at a school like Penn State. So I took that class and asked a ton of questions and, I had no idea how to shoot a camera or what aperture men or big lenses or anything.

but I think the passion really started actually when I started. Shooting football. So like just the excitement of that, like being on the sideline and you're capturing, these images that are getting published and people are sharing. And I mean, I was like, wow, I can really do something with this. And you're taking a lot of the aspects of, composition that.

I worked with previously in sculpture classes and drawing and painting, and you're just doing it in a totally different medium, which is this device in your hand. so I found it very interesting, very quickly, and then like really went full force. this is something that I would really like to pursue. and for my, I would say my sophomore, junior, senior year, 100 percent of my focus was on, on photo, whether that was actual classes or extracurriculars I also was working in New York City.

I was going home to my parents and shooting fashion week and, assisting photographers who were working with French models. And it was really wild, but it just, it opened this. of this whole aspect of the art world that I didn't know anything about. Fantastic. And that's a great segue into the next question, right? So you think about photography today, right? everyone has a phone. What are the phones all have? They all have cameras.

And so we forget about photography as an art because we've have the benefit, the privilege of having a camera in our pocket at all times. But You know, with art, there's style, right? And so how would you describe as you were, kind of cutting your teeth as they say, as a photographer, how did you find your style and how would you describe what that style is?

I feel like what you're shooting really helps you determine how you're going to shoot it. So like the way I would shoot, an editorial spread with a model and the way I would shoot, a cliff in Italy, are two very different things. But before I got into photography, I did a lot of abstract painting. Really not photorealistic stuff. Like I wanted to play around with neon colors and footprints and big shapes.

So I think the simplicity and the style of my painting eventually transferred itself to my style of photography. So I shoot a lot of like extreme closeups. I had one professor I'd studied abroad in Italy, through a Penn State program that was absolutely fantastic. But one of the professors told me like, you really use a camera, like a knife, you're not a wide angle person. Like you're almost more concerned with cutting things away and focusing on something singular than anything else. and.

He also called a lot of my work abstract, like there is an abstract way to take a photo as well, which might sound confusing, but I would say style wise, it really is like kind of extreme closeups and like really focusing on a single subject and I shoot almost everything like a portrait. So, whether it's a human or something else, I generally even hold the camera vertically, and shoot something almost like it's a headshot. you're like very focused on one singular subject.

on the back of the statement that Ross just made, do you think we as a society have lost some appreciation for photography since, it's accessible to us on our iPhones?

Yeah, I have very mixed opinions about that. I think, I think that there's been a loss of appreciation for the technical side. Of things because, you don't have to learn them anymore. I can take a photo on my iPhone that looks incredibly similar to a photo that I would take on a 7, 000 camera now, which is, hurts my heart a little bit. But that aside, you still have to compose the photo. You still have to do the color work in the edit.

And there definitely is still style to any photo that you see in this world. Like things are either aesthetically pleasing to you or they're not. So, in a way, like kind of that love hate relationship, like it, it pains me that people don't appreciate the technical side, but I think it's also wonderful how much more content that you see from, many different types of people that's going to show you many different ways of looking at things because of that accessibility.

So double edged sword in a way. I've really enjoyed following, some influencers in the photography space and on Instagram, some that actually take photos from helicopters too, and it's just amazing to see the work and the appreciation, compared to. amateurs like myself.

So you spoke a little bit about Penn State. We're going to put you now formally in the lines then brought to you by our friends at Lions Pride and reminisce about your time at Penn State. Remember to visit lions pride. com to pick up all your Penn State fall sports apparel and gear. So this is the toughest question of the podcast. Because there's so many. Favorite Penn State memory? Oh man, how could you pick one? It was like the most incredible four years of my life.

ugh, I guess I could pick a photography one because it's, related. When I was graduating and obviously very upset that was happening. I made a small business out of shooting graduation photos. So I got to shoot graduation photos for, a bunch of sororities and, people that were my classmates.

And one of them was for, This woman whose name I can't remember, I feel terrible about that, but I had shot her for the cover of Valley Magazine, and she was a cheerleader, and she was also an ROTC member, and she was very friendly with the mascot, like the person who was the lion at the time. So, She got us into the stadium with the lion alone beaver stadium Myself and the lion and we had a full fledged photo shoot And that was you know, like a very full circle Penn State moment for me.

That's very cool. That's awesome very cool. I you know, I've always wondered why they don't have why someone doesn't like as a college student Set themselves up by the lion's shrine on a football weekend and just Hey, you want like a professional, really good, high quality photo. Like I'm your guy. charge, whatever they need to charge and I'm sure they'd make some good money. I actually saw that. my family was up and we were up at Penn state. When was this in back in the spring? I think it was.

Yeah. And there was a photographer who looked like she was of grad school age and she was there with, one group of girls that looked like they were friends from the sorority and another group. And she had gathered these groups together and was like, let's all go. And she set up shop. And I think she kind of weaved in like the regular people, like us that we're just visiting to get our pictures by the shrine. But like she just did a whole bunch of sessions. It was a beautiful, Saturday afternoon.

There you go. Yeah. Awesome. All right, Jill. So if you could go back and visit with yourself as an 18 year old freshman about to set foot on University Park campus, what advice would you share? Whoa, it was a long time ago. what would I share? when I first got there, my high school was not like super school spirity by any means. So like I was a little overwhelmed at first, like first pep rally. You're like, wow, no, this is different. Like people are very passionate here.

And if I could give myself some advice, I think I'd say, off the bat, just roll with it, like, why figure it out? You're gonna love it. It doesn't have to be high school spirits. Great. you don't have to be too cool. just let it happen. You're in state college meeting new people. kind of, kind of leave that part of your life behind because this is going to be such, such a new world along the advice lines. Now, just, Carrying on with the theme.

When you find out someone is considering Penn State, what do you tell them? Why should they go there? there's so, so many reasons. the opportunity I really think is the biggest thing, like sort of as I was alluding to before, a school that size, and I mean, the alumni network is unbelievable. you're just affording yourself an incredible amount of opportunity, no matter what your major is.

Tons and tons of people and resources and things that come to campus, that you might not find everywhere else, you're in the middle of Pennsylvania, but when I was there, U. S. Presidents came, world renowned musicians came every, football game was unbelievable. A huge team. I mean, I could rattle off things that went on during my undergrad that I don't think that I would have had an opportunity to see or be a part of at any other point in my life.

but the alumni network is really the special thing to me, because when you graduate, I mean, you have an instantaneous connection with anyone who went to Penn State. And I forget the statistic. I think it was like one in 119 degrees when I graduated. college degrees in America were from Penn State. So I found myself, after college, Not necessarily making a connection with someone who was an alumni knowing it, but I'd walk into a job interview and see a mug on a desk.

And, all of a sudden we had something to talk about. beyond that, all of the professors were incredibly well connected in my personal experience. To real life, institutions, galleries, et cetera, et cetera. Like I would go home on breaks and go visit my professors openings in New York City, which is exactly what I wanted to do with my career, as I move forward. So, again, as a 19 year old, you're not walking confidently into a gallery opening and striking up a conversation with.

several people, but when you have that connection, you absolutely are. So, there's all of that, but beyond that, the social life, I've, I just went to another Penn State friend's wedding this weekend. the base of just friendships that were made, like really truly are lifelong. I feel like everybody does say it, but, it's just, it's like such a special opportunity to connect with people. Absolutely. Well, Jill, this has been a really interesting conversation tonight.

So I want to thank you for joining us. You know, as I reflect back to a few things that you said, you leverage social media to find out about the company, which I think you may be the first guest that has spoken about leveraging social media in that capacity. And I think it's just a really good lesson, especially as we have students listen to this podcast to think about it. Their social media beyond just connecting with friends, but actually connecting and learning about companies.

And then I really want to give you credit because you talked about. Taking a chance on a relatively new company that is growing and, the sweat equity that you had to put into it in the beginning. And now you're your chief of staff, you are right there with the CEO. And I think that's also just a great lesson for anyone who's listening to think about kind of.

The opportunities that come your way in your career and really taking a chance and, putting in that hard work and continuing to rise, the rank. So I'm excited to see where you fly to next, both literally and figuratively. and just, wish you continued success and good luck on your journey. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Great. And we always end the podcast with, we are Penn State. RAAAWR RAAWR Lion Legacy is a Bar Ruter production.

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