By Matthew Gutierrez
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — Long before he became a senior vice president at CannonDesign, Michael Corb made $3.30 an hour flipping burgers at a Wendy’s in Louisiana.
“How little pay I got for how much work there was a real eye-opener,” said the now 44-year-old manager at the global architectural firm with a location in downtown Pittsburgh.
During high school in the late 1980s, Corb served up burgers at the fast-food restaurant near his hometown of Covington, about 50 miles north of New Orleans. Working in the kitchen, at the drive-thru and at the front register greeting customers taught him the importance of building relationships.
Corb had applied to Wendy’s at 15, when he decided he needed to earn some extra cash. He doesn’t remember a lot of details from the experience. What he does remember was a high turnover rate. He quickly learned it was a transient place of work, a far cry from a sustainable career.
The opportunity motivated him to strive for higher grades in class. At times he’d coasted through school, taking the fact of going to college for granted. But after a few years in the service industry, he buckled down in college.
“The clock was ticking,” he said. “It made me ask, ‘What do I want to do with the rest of my life? It seemed to stir something in me.”
He went on to study ecology at nearby Tulane University, where he worked at a local fish market. That position also convinced him to set his bar higher. Among his duties, he boiled fish, shucked oysters and cooked crab. But whether he was flipping burgers at Wendy’s or helping customers at the fish market, he learned to listen.
“(The jobs) gave me an insight into the fact that a lot of the business world is about people,” he said. “It’s about really developing interpersonal skills and understanding where your clients are coming from, whether they’re ordering a hamburger or a $30 million building.”
During his first semester at Tulane, Corb met a fellow student studying architecture. He had never considered the field before, but had enjoyed science and art from a young age. He finished out his degree in ecology, then went back to Tulane for a master’s in architecture, his true passion.
He’s worked in a managerial role for CannonDesign since February. When he speaks with clients, he might ask, “What keeps you up at night?”
Doing so helps him get to a client’s root needs. That’s important whether he’s speaking with a lower-level faculty member or the president of an organization.
With more than 15 years experience in architecture, Corb credits his early service jobs with laying the bricks for his career.
He learned how to work with teams, not be afraid to ask why a situation is the way it is and to understand a problem before offering solutions. He knows he learned a few things in those hours in the kitchen.
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