GRADUATE PROFILE
Michael Piscetelli, BA ’19 There are two things that Michael Piscetelli is sure of: His Thomas Edison State University education directly led to being hired by his current employer, and his degree and new position would not have happened without the encouragement of his wife, Malenie.
“While I was interviewing for my job at Ergon Asphalt & Emulsion Inc., my future boss made me do a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation on why they should be doing business with me,” explained Piscetelli, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences/Mathematics in December 2019. “So, I had to talk about the company; I had to talk about my experience; I had to cover a number of topics, and I learned how to do all of that at Thomas Edison! I did for the interview what I had learned to do in one of my courses: I taped the presentation notes on my computer, I timed it, I had it down. I knew exactly how much time to devote to each slide. I had studied, I had prepared, and I made the presentation just as I had in my course.” Piscetelli acknowledged that it was just ‘a little something,’ but that he probably would not have had the confidence to make that presentation had it not been for what he learned at TESU. He noted that although he always had good jobs, he had lost many better opportunities over the years because he didn’t have a 4-year degree and had begun to consider starting his own business.
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“I got to a point where I was really down on myself and didn’t like what I was doing. As long as I was selling, I had security, but when you’re not selling, you lose that security. Then my wife, Malenie, said, ‘what do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I’ll buy a business.’
