Daniel Meyers (A. B. Combs) -
Mr. Jim Davis is a very interesting person. He said a good leader has to be trustworthy, has to show integrity, is ready when needed, is able to facilitate the success of others and has good communicating skills. He got interested in computer science through math then he worked at a newspaper company then he got hired at SAS. His favorite part of his job is public speaking. What he said about being a leader changed my mind about what a good leader is especially the part about facilitating the success of others.
Dr.Hasan Jameel is a good leader because he affects many of his students lives. He said a good leader needs to be able to motivate others, have self integrity, and be able to come up with a vision others can add on to. His favorite part of his job is finding the cheapest way to make car fuel out of trees and his job is to make every day things environmentally friendly and economically friendly. That’s why Mr.Jameel is a good leader.
Mrs.Jennifer Weiss is a the representative for Wake County as member of the North Carolina General Assembly. Her job has lots of leadership opportunities and she is a very good leader. She said she has to do what she thinks is right. Sometimes making the right decision means choosing between two hard decisions which can take a lot of thought and is not easy. She also said that she wanted to help people since she was a kid so this is a perfect job for her.
Jenine Black (A. B. Combs) -
Jim Davis is a very interesting person, he thought of leaders as people that instead of bossing around everyone, they help and try to understand each other. He said leaders need to have integrity and trust for others. I also liked how he treated everyone like an equal, even us. He used large words almost like we were college students. According to Mr. Davis if you want to be a good business leader you need to focus on business today, but also know where it is going.
Hasan Jameel believes that all leaders should have a vision for the future. The vision should be what you really want to end up with. He also believes that everyone can be a leader. He said that you can lead a small amount of people and you would still be a leader, “not everyone can be president of the United States,” people can lead smaller things. To become a leader you should take every challenge you see.
Jennifer Weiss is one of many members of the General Assembly. She showed us the chamber where they vote and where she sits. We didn’t get to talk to her about leadership but, she seems to believe very strongly in safety. For example, when they were voting about allowing smoking inside the building and a few public places instead of voting yes, she voted no because of the dangers of secondhand smoke. She is a great leader.
Steven Hee (West Cary Middle School) -
Today was a whole new experience that I will never forget. As a student ambassador i met with Senior Vice President Jim Davis. He was a down to earth executive at SAS. He gave some great advice on leadership. The key points of the meeting with Mr.Davis were the traits needed to become a great leader. The most important being the ability to motivate and be motivated, forms of innovation, and how a great leader is separated from a good leader by the measure of his character. While meeting with Mr.Davis, we also met with Jim Goodknight, the founder of SAS. The next meeting was with a proffesor at NC State University. Dr. Hasan Jameel took a differnt approach to answering our questions on leadership by instead asking US what we felt about it. His answers focused mainly on motivation and how a great leader will sometimes step down and let someone else take charge for the benefit of the whole group. Motivation was a recurring point in both of these leaders. After a interview session with the proffesor I realized that to become a leader one must not only encourage the ones around themselves to succeed but the ones around them too. Our final meeting of the day was with a member of the North Carolina General Assembly, Ms. Jennifer Weiss. Ms. Weiss took us on a tour of the Legislative building and even let us in the chamber where all the debate on bills took place! Also a different experience, she explained what took place in the building and how bills were debated and passed. At the end of the day I had a entirely different view on leadership and what separated leadership from management. A key role in leadership that was thoroughly repeated was motivation. By participating in the CKSAP, I believe that I will enter high school with a different approach, one fit fot the road to become a leader.
Rishi Jaswaney (West Cary Middle School) -
im Davis- When I learned we were meeting the CFO of SAS I was very nervous. Shortly after sitting down with him I realized that he was a very relaxed, down to earth man. It felt comfortable talking to him being a leader and learning what his take on a leader was. He didn’t patronize or talk down to us but rather had a discussion with us. He told us how he got to where he was and how gave us advice on staying motivated and achieving our goals. In my opinion, meeting Mr. Davis was a great opportunity and I learned a lot from him.
Hasan Jameel- After our interview with Mr. Davis, we went to NCSU to meet Dr. Jameel. When we started asking questions he asked for our opinion on each question. This made the interview feel more like a conversation. He walked us through a regular day working as a chemical engineer and talked about the projects he works on. I enjoyed meeting Dr. Jameel.
Jennifer Weiss- Our last stop of the first day on this mission was Ms. Weiss. She is a member of the NC General Assembly and represents the 35th House district. She also gave us a tour of the chamber room where the pass/veto bills. I was at a loss for words when we entered into this building. It was a prestigious room with large golden doors. She told us about some of the most recent bills she had passed and gave us her story on how she came to her high level in politics.
Today, we met Dr. David Yazdani of Cisco Systems. Trim and energetic, he was a very cheerful presence in our group. First, we started off with lunch in the Cisco cafeteria, Building 7. Apparently, there are 12 buildings, in which three include cafeterias, on the Cisco campus. During lunch, Mr. Yazdani gave a short history of Cisco and himself. Born in Iran, Mr. Yazdani grew up in a very well off family. Unfortunately, due to a civil war, he moved to America with only $2000. Afterwards, he joined Cisco and progressed to the position in which he is in today.
