A decade ago, UCSB launched the innovative Master of Technology Management program, equipping future tech leaders with the skills and business acumen to lead the next generations of technological innovation. In Santa Barbara and beyond, 367 MTM alumni are shaping the ever-changing face of our global, tech-based economy. In celebration of MTM’s ten-year anniversary, three alumni from the inaugural cohort–Paul Malone, Matt Baum, and Michael Guerra–joined us for a conversation on the value of their MTM degree in their careers, advice for future students, and more.
Paul Malone (MTM ‘16) graduated from UCSB with a degree in Biology from the College of Creative Studies. Holding various positions in the dive industry, in small businesses, and as an infantryman in the U.S. Army, Paul now serves as Director of Business Development for EOTECH.
Reflecting on his first encounter with the MTM program at an info session, and what drew him to the program, Paul recounts that “it became pretty clear to me early that they were building something valuable and they utilized their own product market validation process that we learned about in terms of building the program. They were going out to technology companies and asking, what are you not getting from your managers and your leaders? And what do they need to learn? And that appealed to me. You shouldn't treat technology and businesses as separate disciplines–You need people that can stand astride them.”
Matt Baum (MTM ‘16), a current Principal Product Manager at Procore Technologies, earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering from UCSB and found the MTM program as a way to strengthen his career after a former position limited his future growth opportunities.
“I had worked with product managers in my role, which always seemed like an interesting opportunity to make critical business decisions,” Matt says. “[MTM] seemed like a good fit–a good balance of the hard and soft skills that are required to be successful in management and working in tech.”
As a Senior Manager of Financial Management, also at Procore Technologies, with a degree in Biopsychology from UCSB, Michael Guerra (MTM ‘16), reflects on the real-world skills from the MTM program that were essential in transforming the business. “Two years ago, we had a big go-to-market transformation, which resulted in the combination of a team that I was managing, and then another team on the solutions engineering side. MTM was critical in the success of starting and forming a new team by leveraging some of the skills, case studies, and work that we did in the program.”
Guerra recounts his introduction to the program, and how insights into technology management by Department Chair Paul Leonardi mirrored his own career goals in tech.
“I remember him telling a story of Tesla and Edison,” Guerra states, “and how the ability to bring their innovation and technology to the masses or bring it to reality was not just based on being a better technology, but being able to communicate how it's going to be valuable. And my thing was always bringing technology to people and in a way that would have a positive impact.”
Among the three alumni, there was a common thread in their highlights from the program: the cohort community.
“When I reflect on my career and getting through that program, it's really the teammates that I had that add the most valuable things for me,” says Malone. “I tend to think and see things pretty clearly in terms of business problems, but I learned in MTM that people are wired a little bit differently. I'm around engineers and scientists and people with different skill sets that see the same problem set that I do and see different solutions that may exist.”
“I think the program is really good exposure to the real world of working in teams and being dependent on other people,” Baum notes. “People are motivated differently. They're incentivized differently. So just learning how to communicate, empathize, and really take that different perspective became a crucial takeaway.”
Unlike other traditional graduate programs, such as an MBA, the MTM program offers a more focused curriculum: in just nine months, the program gives graduates a practical foundation in business and tech through both academic and hands-on approaches.
“The curriculum is very well-rounded, relevant, and applicable,” states Guerra. “Sometimes you read something in a textbook and you ask, ‘how do I actually put that into action?’ From the faculty in academia to the guest speakers who came from the industry, the program was really powerful in translating what we were learning about into real-life scenarios and applications.”
“The exposure to finance and managerial economics was very helpful in navigating my career–I remember in my first month at Procore with a very demanding customer, I leveraged some of the direct framework we learned from our negotiation course. I had outlined with one of our executives our ‘zone of possible agreement’ with the customer. And I remember them responding in the Slack thread and saying, Who are you? Where did you learn this framework?”
For the alumni, their current roles offered a full-circle moment through MTM students’ involvement with field projects at both EOTECH and Procore. Though just graduate students, MTM students are able to make critical contributions and impact at real-world companies.
“I was impressed with their outside perspective and the ability to analyze things in a way that you wouldn't have thought on your own,” remarks Baum. “For me, it was rewarding to come full circle and get the opportunity to be on the other side of the table with the cohort.”
“I hope that the students took away that there aren't real clear business problems that present themselves all the time. You have to find ways to think about things creatively, and they did that,” adds Malone. “They asked good questions, they challenged some assumptions that they ought to, and brought perspectives from outside of our industry to problems that I was looking at. And the conclusions that they reached, some were what I expected, others were totally novel to me, and they uncovered things that weren't on my radar. They brought value to us for sure.”
