Archives for the Month of March 2006 on Danny Pho's Online Journal
Progressive Insurance
So we have a winner. The company is Progressive Insurance. The current CEO of the company is Peter B. Lewis, who started working for Progressive after his father died. Progressive is the third largest insurance company and the largest seller of auto insurance. It has set many firsts in their industry including the first to receive payment from a PDA. It is currently ranked number 155 in the latest Fortune 500, moving up every year since 2001. This corporation
Like all the other companies I profiled, Progressive offers several internships. For accouting majors, they have an excellent internship that allows participants to rotate to different positions. It also has internship opportunities in the IT department and also for MBA students.
Peter B Lewis...
This company has a connection to Peter B Lewis. His father started this company with Jack Green in 1937. Like the majority of the companies that I have profiled so far, it started small in the Cleveland area before it exploded with their innovative ideas. Mr Lewis became the CEO of this company by 1965 and has been in control of the company ever since. They had offices in downtown Cleveland before moving their headquarters to Mayfield Village (a suburb of Cleveland). It is a publicly traded company. It is considered to be the third largest company in their industry.
I can't give too much more information about this company without giving it away like the previous one so I guess you'll have to wait until the next entry for more clues or maybe even the answer. There should be enough clues for you to find the answer.
American Greetings
So I apparently I'm making it too easy to guess the identity of the company. The company is American Greetings. It is located really close to the Plain Dealer. I did not know that it hosted the Python meeting. For those who don't know what Python is (I didn't know what it was either before I went through the link), it is a type of programming language. The founder of the company moved from Poland to Cleveland in the early 20th century and started the company here. It started as a small family business and grew to what it is today. It began with only $50 in 1905 and has is currently making about $2 billion in sales each year.
Something interesting about the company is that it is the creator of Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Holly Hobbie. It is pretty cool that these popular characters originated in the Cleveland area.
As for internship opportunities, American Greetings do offer several options. The current openings are located in the HQ, here in Cleveland.
Card Company
It's time to switch to a little different type of company. The company's world headquarters is located in Cleveland. It is actually located ten minutes from my house. According to its website it is the "world's largest publicly owned creator, manufacturer and distributor of social expression products." It currently employs around 18000 employees world-wide and provides products to over 125000 stores world-wide. Their products reach places like Mexico, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. They will be celebrating their centennial anniversary this year. There's a huge possibility that you have bought a card created by them or received a card from them.
Knowing that this is a major card company should give you a general idea of what this company is but if not, you'll just have to wait until the next post for the answer.
GE: Final entry
So this is my final entry about GE. I am also profiling this company as part of my MGMT 251 project. So just concluding a little more information about GE, it is currently separated into 6 parts. Each part of the company does something completely different. Nela Park in East Cleveland belongs to the Consumer Industrial side of the business, which essentially deals with the light bulbs it sells. Because it deals with lighting, Nela Park has an amazing light display during the winter season on Noble Road. My parents used to take my family there when I was younger and it was nice seeing it again this past winter. Nela Park also has a lighting institute in which it describes the way light bulbs evolved over time.
Something interesting about GE is that it owns NBC. That is one of the reasons why GE was a huge sponser for the previous Winter Olympic games and will be for the next couple Olympic games. GE is not only appliances but also deals with the entertainment industry, healthcare, credit cards, and many more different industries.
As for the comments regarding my last entry, I am not too sure what the salary for entry-level employees are. I do know it is relatively competitive with other entry-level positions. The good thing about that position is that it is a huge stepping stone to get into upper-management, something that will pay much more.
Nela Park and other area locations of GE hire many Case students so there are a lot of opportunities there. From personal experience, it is a great place to work at.
GE
I guess if you read the comments, the company I was referring to is General Electric. GE is the most admired company and it feels really great to be working for them. Although the company is not the best in any specific area, it is stil one of the best overall.
There are many opportunites within the company. Recent graduates may enter into one of many entry-level leadership programs. Since I work in the finance department, the program for recent graduate is called the financial management program (FMP). This is considered to be the best program there is. The majority of the upper-level management went through some type of leadership program such as the FMP. Besides for this type of program, there are many internship and Co-op positions available. People who work for GE also have the opportunity to get transfer to any of its many locations throughout the world.
Come back in a couple of days for the last entry about GE...maybe you'll learn something new or surprising about this huge corporation.