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Cindy Szadokierski '81: "Basketball, my friends
and R-MC gave me a sense of purpose." |
Cindy Szadokierski ’81 still has the gold charm in the shape of an “R” that she received after mastering a difficult part of the French language while at R-MC. “It was so rewarding to be able to roll my Rs,” says the
French major, a native of Strasburg, Virginia. “Drs. Hilliard and deGraff were both so willing to help a small-town country gal learn a foreign language, even though I spoke French with a Southern drawl.”
Szadokierski enrolled at R-MC after visiting the campus at the request of Billy Wood, who coached
women’s basketball at the time. “I had planned to go to the University of Virginia to play basketball, but then I spent a weekend on R-MC’s campus,” says Szadokierski. “I met my now-longtime friend and fellow basketball player Becky Spigle Collie ’80 that weekend. We have known each other since that spring day in 1977. As the saying goes, the rest is history.”
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Initially, basketball was “simply something to do,” says Szadokierski. “However, it became a lifeline for me after my mother passed away during Christmas of my sophomore year. It was the team and basketball that kept me going.” An only child, Szadokierski’s father had died five years earlier. “Basketball, my friends and R-MC gave me a sense of purpose,” says Szadokierski. “Billy Wood and Jim Jump, our assistant coach, set high expectations for us not only as players but as students and people. They taught us discipline, the meaning of teamwork, how to handle victory and defeat – life’s true lessons. Who knew my basketball teammates and fans would become my lifelong best friends?”
Szadokierski, who now lives in Elmhurst, Illinois, went on to become a French teacher and traveled every summer with her students to Europe. “I really wanted to travel for free, so I decided I would work for an airline,” she says. “I answered an ad in the
Washington Post and became a frontline reservations agent at United Airlines.”
That was just the beginning of what would become an exciting career for Szadokierski. “When I started working for United Airlines, I never thought that I would still be here 25 years later,” she says. “Who would have believed I would become a vice president of a Fortune 500 company? The sky is truly the limit; if you work hard, you can do anything.”
During J-term 2010, Szadokierski mentored
Courtney Hiltunen ’10, who interned at United Airlines. “I was thrilled to have someone from R-MC working at United,” she says. “Typically, our interns are MBA candidates and not undergrads. Having Courtney here afforded me the opportunity to showcase a great company, my great team and the world of opportunities that await Courtney. It also exposed her to a very different and challenging business environment and it allowed me the opportunity to show my pride for R-MC when I introduced her to business associates. This was a small way for me to give back to the college that gave so much to me.”
Szadokierski also stays connected to R-MC through friends, the alumni magazine and the Web site. “I am thrilled to be a member of the Board of Associates, which helps me to stay connected, meet more
alumni and convince prospective students that R-MC is the place to go to college,” she says.