Self Introduction

My name is Porter Rappleye.  I'm married and have two kids.  I work for a company called Instructure and sell educational software for a living.  I'm working on my MBA at Westminster College and plan to finish in the summer of 2017.  I love the outdoors and anything that includes a scoreboard.  I love variety in my life so I'm constantly changing hobbies but right now my favorite activities are mountain biking, basketball, and ping pong.

I graduated from Weber State University in 2011 with a Business/Marketing degree and have been in sales ever since.  Though I love my job at Instructure, I'm hoping I can use the skills I learn in my MBA program to start and run my own business. 

I don't have a ton a Project Management specific background, but I believe what I do at work in a sales role requires PM skills.  I've also flipped a couple houses which required managing multiple projects at once.  Though the flips have gone well up to this point, I believe they could have gone much better had I applied some of the skills I hope to learn in this class.  One of the keys to being a successful house flipper is the ability to create an effective plan and then stay on track and on budget with that plan.  This sounds like an easy skill, but it's much more difficult in practice.  This is definitely something I want to improve on.

I have strong oral communication skills and am able to convey a message convincingly and effectively.  I am very much an "ideas" guy and am able to see "the big picture" easily and can help others catch that vision.  I've been able to achieve a relatively high amount of success, not because I'm smart or extremely skilled in certain areas, but because I have a high tolerance for risk and have taken advantage of opportunities that most people are scared to try.  Where I lack is the ability to turn ideas into action. I typically jump into opportunities with both feet before planning out the best course of action.  I'm hoping this class can help me build and implement effective plans that will help me reach my professional and personal goals.