Gordon in the News: last updated 11/29/2010
Story by Mac Gostow '13
Photo by Derek Schoffstall '14
Last April Stevie (Stephanie) Bittner, a senior English major, got a surprise email from a man named Chad Petterson, a former Wall Street trader with a vision for a business-oriented reality-TV show in Teupasenti, Honduras. He was looking for someone to coordinate video production and assist in preliminary meetings and start-up publicity for the show, Wall Street Exodus. Petterson had heard about Stevie’s internship work with the CBS News press office, and thought she’d be a great addition to the project.
The long-story-short version is that Stevie, in need of a summer job, soon found herself deep in the impoverished slums of Teupasenti, Honduras, working with twelve brilliant Wall Street businessmen who were attempting to build sustainable businesses there. Teupasenti, one of the poorest regions of Central America, had felt the frightening force of Hurricane Mitch in 1999, as it set the region back five years.
During Stevie’s time in Honduras, videographers filmed the pilot as the Wall Streeters met with officials and townspeople. Bittner coordinated production and developed spreadsheets and comparative charts for investors. Production was filmed with still cameras for either the pilot to a television show or a promotional tool to generate publicity and investor support.
Although Stevie is back in the States now, she has maintained contact with Petterson and reports that the project is still underway. Her experience in Honduras, she says, was good preparation for the work she hopes to enter at the network level. Though Wall Street Exodus was a lower-budget project, Stevie was able to immerse herself in a highly informative, logistically similar experience to that of a larger network company.
Just as valuable, Bittner’s perspective on the networking industry shifted as a result of her internship, as she recognized the potential paths she could take in this field. She became aware of the responsibility big-name network companies have in spreading their influences to economically struggling regions.
RELATED INFORMATION:
Gordon's Honduras International Summer Seminar
This summer Gordon will host an international seminar in Honduras titled "Living with a Disability in the Developing World."
