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Final Blog Post

The thing that inspired me to do my project was the hope that I would come out of the project with more knowledge of business and more importantly law. While planning my project I tried to make it so that during my interviews I would have a wide array of interviewees who had jobs from every aspect of business and law. All of this is inside of a company so it narrows down the kind of law and business I want to learn more about. My project went well in the sense that I accomplished my goal of learning how law and business intertwine. I learned all about what kind of lawyer you can be while in a company like parker and also more about how large businesses run. I really enjoyed all the interviews and my questions were always answered with fleshed-out answers. On top of all this, I worked with my mentor, Mr. Leonti, all throughout my project and learned all kinds of law-related ideas and mottos and just more about parker itself. One of the lawyers told me all about product liability and the...

Blog Post 7

In my last two interviews, I got to learn more about the business side of parker. In one of my interviews with Mr. Liberatore, VP, Controller, I learned more about his job and what he does that makes him so successful. To start with Mr. Liberatores' job has everything to do with finances. He is the head financial person in the fluid connectors group and is responsible for financial reporting and making sure everything is in US codes. I was told that everything in the WIN strategy leads to financial performance. One thing I found interesting during the interview was how much business parker does with other large companies. For example, half of the fluid connectors parts parker sells go to John Deering. Another idea that was talked about had to do with succession management. Which I heard plenty more about in other interviews. But Mr. Liberatore added to what I learned in the sense that he talked about making sure each new hire has the desire to succeed and the grit to do it. During ...

Blog Post 6

Throughout my last four interviews, my main focus was to learn a little more about the business side of things. In one of my interviews with Mr. Fox, VP of supply chain, I learned more about all the supply chain issues that have been happening lately. These issues are happening because there is a lack of workers in factories and a shortage of materials.  Mr. Fox's overall job is to manage orders from when they are bought until they are delivered. So all the supply chain issues have really been on his plate. One thing that Mr. Fox said that stuck out to me was that the unknown is the biggest challenge. Events happening outside the US like the Russian Ukrainian war are affecting parker because they can't buy or sell any products that have been through Russia. Even if it's from a second-hand seller. One challenge I learned about during the interview was the challenge of finding and mentoring talent. Talent needs to be layered as you go up the chain so one promotion can lead to...

Blog Post 5

During my last few interviews with the legal team, I got to talk to Associate and Assistant GCs and learn about what each of them does specifically. Starting off with Mrs. Breitenbach who is an Assistant GC at parker. To begin the interview I got an insight into how company mergers and acquisitions work from a legal standpoint. If two companies merge depending on the contract all the workers from the old company automatically become parker employees. Mrs. Breitenbach also works a lot with the customer experience and makes sure customers are happy with whatever they are buying. She also taught me about how the WIN strategy plays a role in her work in the sense that keeping everyone feeling engaged and important is key to creating a successful work environment. Some advice she told me about managing workload is to make a checklist and prioritize things based on what's more pressing. I was also taught that by thinking about how you can improve processes at work eventually you’ll becom...

Blog Post 4

  I was told more about what makes them so successful throughout my following interviews with the legal team. One interview I found particularly interesting was with Mr. Steve Klinge, an Associate General Counsel, and Assistant Secretary. During this interview, Mr. Kling talked about how COVID affected the company. Covid changed talent development in the way that it made competition for talent more serious. As a result of COVID, many companies were forced to go online which in turn made people realize they didn't have to move to work for the company they wanted to work for anymore—making it easier for people to get hired and harder to find the talent they want at Parker. Mr. Klinge also talked about the ESG motto and its importance for everyone on the legal team to follow and live it. I learned more about what Mr. Klinge and some of my other legal team interviewees do for parker, and how they communicate with investors and clients. How they tell people bad news and how they approac...

Blog Post 3

 Over my next couple of interviews, I learned a little more about the fluid connectors group but more importantly, I started interviewing the legal team for Parker. At the head of it, was my mentor Mr. Leonti, who I spent the morning with learning in-depth about what he does and how he does it. Mr. Leonti is included in every Parker legal matter worldwide, he oversees buying and selling and also any lawsuits Parker has to deal with. One of the most important things he does is in charge of supervising acquisitions which is one of the main ways the company grows. Mr. Leonti told me even more about ESG and how important that motto is for the company, especially from a legal aspect. I was also told about how people in the legal team have their own roles and deal with certain aspects of things, and how there are dedicated people all across the board. Mr. Leonti also wants Parker's legal team to be one that people want to work with and don't dread coming to when there's an issue....

Blog Post 2

 Over the first few days of my senior project, I got to go into Parker and interview some of the head members of the fluid connectors division. Throughout my first three interviews, I got to learn all about what makes Parker so successful and how they manage day-to-day tasks. During my first interview with Mr. Kevin Ruffer (the head HR person for the fluid connectors group), he told me all about some of the issues he had to overcome because of Covid and how he handled it. Also, during this interview, I got my first insight into the WIN strategy, which is the primary business strategy used by Parker. In the WIN strategy, there are four pillars (Engaged People, Customer Experience, Profitable Growth, and Finacial Peformance), and each pillar is the main strategy for each kind of worker. Throughout my next two interviews, I learned more about the WIN strategy and how each of the 4 pillars of the strategy checks each other and keeps one another in balance. While interviewing the VP of ...