Pathway Helper Visits Assembly
By Noah Mitchell
It is not everyday that a CEO of a highly reputable company comes to take part in an interview hosted for students. Bill McDermott and his company SAP made an appearance in the auditorium to share stories and experiences from his life while also giving advice on how to overcome the obstacles facing their lives.
“I was working three jobs as a teenager, and I traded those three jobs in to be an entrepreneur and run my own delicatessen business,” McDermott said.
Eventually, after growing more apart of the community and building a game room to cater to the gamers of his delicatessen, a loyal customer came up and said, “Bill, when we wanna have good food, get treated with respect, and play video games we come into your store. And when we wanna steal stuff we go to 7/11.”
After spreading his wings and leaving his business behind he decided to interview for a position at a bigger company in order to bring more money into his struggling household.
“I say to my dad, I just want to let you know, I’m coming home tonight with my employee badge in my pocket, I’m going to get this job,” he said. “I wasn’t going for a job interview, I was in a fight for my life because if I could get that job, it could change the trajectory of my life, I’d be totally in control of my own destiny.”
Recently however, he was involved in a horrible accident that left one of his eyes damaged.
“I was in a horrible accident, I was all alone and woke up from an unconscious state. I was on that line of being on this planet and being somewhere else… I’ll never forget making it out and laying out on the heart of the driveway and half in the street just asking someone to please call 911,” he said.
“You have to find a way to get up, get out, and get on, by the grace of God I did that… What happened to me is nothing compared to other people.”
Finally he took some questions asked by Sophomore Eleanor Wikstrom and Junior Jonathan Piper.
“He was cool, really down to earth. I feel like he didn’t really answer our questions though,” Jonathan said.
Some of his most powerful quotes were left as advice for students like, “trust is built one drip at a time, but you can lose it in buckets,” or, “the true measure of a leader is not what you take from this world, it’s what they give it.”
At the end of the panel students were told they would receive a signed copy of his book.
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