Because of his work in the aviation industry, he was also familiar with the Carson College of Business’s namesake and former Boeing executive, Scott Carson.

Poelma initially had some reservations about not getting classroom time with his online colleagues, but these concerns were alleviated when he started taking classes and saw how the program was set up to facilitate connection between a diverse group of leaders.

“WSU works to provide interaction in all the classes,” he said. “There’s good diversity of students coming from engineering, accounting, healthcare, and finance backgrounds.”

It also helped that Poelma had a dedicated study partner in his daughter, who was also attending college at the time. The two would hold joint study sessions at their local coffee shop.

The Hows and Whys of Business

Although Poelma already had plenty of experience in business principles, what he took away from the Executive MBA program was greater strategic expertise in areas such as international business, administrative policy, and operations management.

Poelma found that the capstone projects that concluded each semester provided an engaging forum for collaboration with other leaders whose experience complemented his.

“One of my teammates was a project management person, another person was supply chain, and the third was in marketing development. We had a well-rounded team,” he said. “It was great to see the strengths of different people as we went through our product development project.”

“I’m at a product company, and with my engineering background, the stuff that we did in our capstone was just fantastic,” Poelma continued. “We talked about ideas and a concept. How do you prove out, or validate, that concept through many different stages—from customers to marketing to channels and all the things that go into it?”

“It’s interesting to be exposed to what the entire cycle should look like. It makes you have better insight into what you’re doing on the product side of things.”

Leading the Way to Continued Growth

Strategy is at the heart of Washington State’s Executive MBA, and Poelma is applying that strategic thinking daily to keep his company at the forefront of aviation manufacturing.

“We want to grow, do more, and bring better and new products to our customers,” he said. “I want to be part of that planning and execution. I want to see where this whole thing is going.”

Poelma acknowledges that it can be hard to make the time to continue your education when you’re as busy as he is. However, he advises interested applicants to approach the program with the same sense of determination that led him to accomplishing an important goal in his personal and professional development.

“Everybody who finishes the program says, ‘Man, I wish I would have done this earlier.’ There’s never a right time, so you just make it happen.”