Joe Walker '06

Account Executive,
PSAV Presentation Services,
Hawaii Event Services Division

q: What do you do?

a: I'm an Account Executive for the one of the largest world-wide audiovisual services providers. My primary duties are to solicit business to new clients, maintain strong relationships with past clients, and improve the overall business development for my region. I mainly handle larger association and corporate business. Aside from my normal duties I get assigned regional projects. For example, most recently I was on the opening team for the brand new St. Regis Princeville Resort on the island of Kauai and I got to live in the hotel for a month.

q: What's your favorite part of the job?

a: Being on the show site and watching my hard work and planning finally come to life. It's always a good feeling to see the finished product and a happy client.

q: What's the greatest challenge?

a: Being on an island. The wheels of progress turn a lot slower in Hawaii than they do in Orlando. Planning must be done extra carefully as you have to prepare for many possible external forces slowing you down. It can take me up to three days to get a piece of equipment that would take me less than two hours to get in Orlando.

q: Do you stay in touch with any other UCF hospitality alums

a: Not too many since moving away from Orlando. I do still keep in touch with Jennifer Grant '06 who is about to finish Florida Hospital's Radiology program.

q: Outside work...you're most likely to be seen?

a: At the beach, hiking a trail, searching for elusive geocaches, or on an airplane because I'm always trying to feed my travel bug.

q: Your biggest accomplishment since graduating, outside your career?

a: Picking up and moving almost 5,000 miles away from where I'm most comfortable. It's been great to be able to explore all the things that the Hawaiian Islands have to offer, especially the things that you would never see on vacation.

q: How did UCF prepare you for what you do?

a: Aside from all the great teaching and hands-on experience that we got, I think the thing that best prepared me for what I do was the countless number of presentations that we had to do in every single class. I do lots of presentations for potential clients and now I see the relevance of doing them while at Rosen.

q: How could the hospitality program have been better?

a: A lot of the classes taught very similar if not exactly the same information. The faculty should get together and make sure that their teaching plans differentiate enough to be able to better stimulate the class.

q: A UCF memory?

a: Beverage Management with Professor Ashley. Hands down best class ever. Learned a lot and had a lot of fun doing it. Another great memory was when the UCF Football team broke their losing 17-game streak against Marshall and we all rushed the field at the Citrus Bowl.

q: Favorite meal in Orlando?

a: There are way too many great meals in Orlando but one that I miss the most frequently is blackened chicken flautas from Tijuana Flats, more specifically the one on Kirkman Road in Metro West.

q: On your iPod?

a: The Fratellis, The Kooks, The White Tie Affair, Owl City, The Living End and the list goes on for days.

q: Little known fact about you?

a:I love to bowl. I'm very bowling deprived on Maui. There's only one alley with eight lanes, and the owners only open it when they feel like it.