Lasell alumni flourish amid the ongoing adaptation to new work environments
By David Nathan
Some took on new responsibilities. Others used the time to enhance their skills or learn about a new field. All had to adapt to an entirely new work environment.
Since March 2020, COVID-19 has impacted how people around the country work. Here, six alumni share stories of how they managed to succeed — and thrive — despite dynamic shifts in the workplace.
"I thrive in chaos. When things like this happen, I am able to function at a high level."
Lindsay Reilly ’13 turned the challenge of owning a business during the pandemic into an opportunity to grow her company.
“I thrive in chaos,” says the founder/CEO of Shop The Cue, a Massachusetts fashion boutique. “When things like this happen, I am able to function at a high level.”
In the early days of the pandemic, the Lasell fashion and retail merchandising major was prescient
to see that COVID was not a short-term disruption, but a long-term problem. She canceled all of her pending product orders, closed her retail store, and, regrettably, laid off her staff.
She took all of the remaining Shop The Cue inventory and curated gift boxes for Mother’s Day and graduation season. She also pivoted from selling clothes and accessories to producing headbands for frontline healthcare workers to hold their masks in place, merging her sewing skills, civic mindedness, industry contacts, and business acumen. Nearly 40,000 were sold before demand waned late last year.
“Headbands for Heroes really helped us survive,” she says. “It was the right thing to do to support the community and from a business perspective.”
In recent months, business has tripled. Shop The Cue moved in March to a long-coveted location in East Milton, Massachusetts, and she opened a warehouse in Fall River.
"I had to become more 'techy' and discover new ways to find out what was happening in the field."
In her eight years at New Balance, Ryann Grande Cazeau ’05 was accustomed to spending up to six days a month on the road as a senior visual merchandiser.
During her visits, she would review the stores’ execution of the company’s merchandising guidelines — everything from mannequin styling to product display — and would also provide direction on store openings and remodeling projects.
COVID, of course, changed everything. Company travel ceased and most employees began working remotely.
“I had to become more ‘techy’ and discover new ways to find out what was happening in the field,” says Cazeau, who majored in fashion and retail merchandising at Lasell.
Cazeau and her visual merchandising colleagues at New Balance were pleasantly surprised at how effective they became using tablet computers for virtual visits with store personnel.
Being able to work from a distance also produced a life-changing benefit for Cazeau: Without the need to travel to stores or commute to the office, she has had more time at home with her husband, Evans Cazeau ’04, and their children, Stella, 5, and Jackson, 2.
"We wanted to put our players in a position to have a healthy 2021 season and help them advance through our minor-league system."
Bobby Stachura ’13, the head athletic trainer for the Greenville Drive — the Red Sox High-A minor-league affiliate in South Carolina — endured a challenging experience with COVID-19 that included a suspended spring training, the unprecedented cancellation of the 2020 season, and virtual training.
“It was hard to grasp that a season was getting canceled by a pandemic,” reports Stachura, a former baseball star at Lasell who majored in athletic training.
Although they were not playing games last year, the members of the Drive returned to their homes but continued to prepare for the 2021 season with Stachura and his colleagues virtually.
“A lot of what I do is hands on, touch and feel, and that was taken away from us,” Stachura says. “It was strange at first, but the more you do things the more it becomes routine. It’s a game of adjustments.”
When players returned to spring training this year, Stachura and his fellow athletic trainers had one goal in mind: Keep their players healthy despite having had no season in 2020.
“It’s hard to mimic the volume and stress of the game of baseball without actually playing,” Stachura says. “We wanted to put our players in a position to have a healthy 2021 season and help them advance through our minor-league system.”
"We were not people who were home a lot, so we definitely enjoyed having more time together. We were able to have lunch, do a lot of bike riding, and take walks."
Four days after Tania McGrath Bradford ’03 accepted a job as an account executive at Rethink Ed, much of the country began closing down due to the pandemic. “I said to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m not going to have a job,’” the Lasell special education major remembers.
Happily, Bradford did have a job. Rethink Ed sent her a company laptop, and she and her colleagues
on the sales team figured out how to proceed in a virtual sales world where in-person visits were no
longer possible.
Since travel restrictions prevented her from making sales calls or attending industry conferences, Bradford had the opportunity to ease in. “It allowed me to take the time to dive deeper into areas of my new career since the sales world was completely foreign to me,” she explains.
Bradford was joined at home by her husband, Jeff Bradford ’03, a national sales consultant with New York Life whose busy travel schedule was also curtailed. They converted a spare bedroom into a home office/studio for Jeff and created an office nook for Tania.
“We were not people who were home a lot, so we definitely enjoyed having more time at home together,” Bradford says. “We were able to have lunch, do a lot of bike riding, and take walks.”
"Lasell prepared me for something like this. The pandemic was not something that I ever thought would happen, but I was able to adjust."
Just two weeks after joining Seacoast Harley-Davidson as an event and marketing coordinator in mid-March 2020, Alexandra Hoffman ’18 and her team were placed on leave. She was not sure how long she would be out of work.
“I was so excited to start a new career planning and marketing these grandiose events — and two weeks into it I didn’t have a job,” she remembers. “I was shocked. I said to myself, ‘I’m being tested here.’”
Relying on what she had learned as an event management major in Lasell’s Michal Longe ’95 School of Business, Hoffman passed that test. She used her time on leave (she and her colleagues were called back after six weeks) to expand her skill set and make herself invaluable to the company. Hoffman went online to learn web design, graphic design, social media marketing, and content creation, transforming herself from an events manager into a marketing and social media coordinator.
When she returned to work, Hoffman was better prepared to plan, market, and execute remote events. Website traffic soared and motorcycle sales spiked.
“Lasell prepared me for something like this,” Hoffman said. “We learned in class about force majeure — how an act of God could disrupt an event — and the need to be able to adapt. The pandemic was not something that I ever thought would happen, but I was able to adjust.”
"Helping everything run smoothly in such an uncertain time was such an impactful piece of my first year at Mass General Brigham."
Hired as a specialist to support the electronic healthcare records system at Mass General Brigham shortly before the pandemic, Adam Dushman ’08 transformed into a hospital generalist temporarily as COVID took hold.
The Lasell psychology major joined a team supporting the healthcare system’s device loaner program, which provided tablets for COVID patients to communicate with their families.
“I’m glad I was able to help, but I knew it was difficult for my colleagues who were there in person,” Dushman says. “Some of the patients used the devices to say their last goodbyes.”
Dushman also helped support the hospital system’s COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites, ensuring that all documentation was processed correctly, that patients were scheduled for follow-up vaccines, and that the clinics could keep up with demand.
Although he missed the camaraderie of working alongside his colleagues in a traditional workplace, he chose to work remotely so he would not endanger the health of his 99-year-old grandmother, with whom he lived before she died in March.
Dushman is proud to have been part of the solution at Mass General Brigham. “Helping everything run smoothly in such an uncertain time was such an impactful piece of my first year,” he says.