Trojan Family Network builds careers for Price alums

Hannah Will had just gone through a whirlwind of life events when she suddenly received bad news. 

In two short years, she got married, had a baby, moved to a new city and earned an online Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the USC Price School of Public Policy. She even landed a new job at Meta – before the tech giant laid off thousands of workers, including Will. 

“I was in this big period of personal transition. I was a new mom. I was newly in my post-MPA program role. There was a lot going on, and then we had these massive layoffs,” Will said. “I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.”

Then the Trojan Family Network of alumni and faculty came to her rescue. Her story is one of countless examples of how members of the storied network support one another throughout their careers to a degree that may well be unmatched among universities.

As Will hunted for a new job, another MPA alum, Katherine Cooley, had just received the opportunity to build her team of government consultants at Deloitte. To find the best talent, Cooley called her former USC Price School professors, who shared names of star students. Will’s name was one of them. 

“Whenever I have an opportunity to hire, the USC Price MPA program always comes to mind,” Cooley said. “The way you function in the MPA program – particularly the capstone project – it’s how consultants do their work. So I know that it’s a pretty safe bet that the person I’m hiring will know how to function in that way.”

A safe bet indeed. Cooley hired Will and two other USC Price alums, who have become important additions to her team. 

“How you work in the online MPA program and how you work in capstone, particularly, is very authentic to my job situation,” Cooley noted. “Not everybody knows how to be a good teammate, and that’s part of why I hired these women. It has proven to be extremely successful.”

It also proved to be validating to Will, who credits the Trojan Family Network for helping her when she needed it most. 

“I came with the recommendation of some of my professors and my colleagues from the MPA program,” Will said. “That’s huge. That’s everything you want; to be able for someone to know – without knowing you – that you can get the job done.”

A Dream Come True

Since he was a kid, Jason Leung has wanted to build cities. He grew up playing Sim City, a video game that allowed him to design sprawling metropolises on his computer. 

“I knew that I wanted to pursue city planning and working with infrastructure development,” said Leung, a Master of Urban Planning (MUP) alum. “I’ve always been very fascinated with creating amazing places to live.”

In particular, he wanted to work at AECOM, the international infrastructure consulting firm. His family hails from Hong Kong, where AECOM has built the city’s major bridges, tunnels and convention center. 

“They don’t just build regular infrastructure. It’s truly the spaces where the entire city gathers,” Leung said. “The work that AECOM has done in Hong Kong is very transformative.”

His dream school helped him land his dream job. 

Leung enrolled in USC in part because of the school’s professional connections through the Trojan Family Network. His research about where to earn his master’s degree revealed that a few USC Price alumni even worked at AECOM. “I’d heard so many great things about the network and the alumni and their relations to Los Angeles,” Leung said. 

He eventually landed a job interview with Lynn Feng, then a planning manager at AECOM. Feng hired Leung as an intern, continuing her own Trojan Family Network story. Feng, who is now Director of Mobility Technologies at the infrastructure firm STV, had previously been hired by a USC alum.

Now, Leung is a full-time transportation planner at AECOM, where he consults on bus, rail and other transit projects around the world. That includes a forthcoming bus lane that will pass right through USC. 

“Lynn was one of the most supportive managers I’ve ever had. It definitely was a dream job and it still very much is. I think it has really allowed me to grow so much as a professional,” Leung said. 

Leung has also been fortunate to receive support from fellow Trojan alumni on his transportation planning team at AECOM, including Victor Xie and Kat Lee, who collaborate with him daily and have taken the time to train him.

“USC definitely has so many resources, and I think that the alumni truly care. It definitely gave me a leg up,” Leung said. “The main takeaway is that the Trojan network is vast and powerful, and I’ve been lucky to encounter Trojans as managers, coworkers, and even friends.”

A Trojan Family Affair

Who knew that tailgating at a USC football game could change your life? 

Before the Trojans took the field on a fall day in 2022, Ryan Phong struck up a conversation with John Keisler, the CEO of investment and consultancy firm Sunstone Management. Phong, then a graduate student at the USC Price School, had just switched careers from law enforcement to finance – and was hunting for an internship. Keisler, an alum of the USC Price School, told Phong that Sunstone had an opening for a fellowship.

That tailgate chat led to Phong landing the fellowship and, eventually, a full-time job at the firm, which advises local governments on economic development, among other services. Phong is now an Associate Project Manager, overseeing Sunstone’s consulting contracts with local governments. 

“John just saw a lot of potential in me,” Phong recalled. 

Now, Phong pays it forward to today’s Trojans. Phong helped develop the Sunstone Economic Development Challenge, an annual competition that tasks USC Price School students with helping local governments create jobs in their communities. 

During last year’s contest, Phong saw the potential in Giselle Melendez-Cruz, a Master of Public Administration student who was on the winning team for advising San Bernardino on supporting startups. Like Keisler before him, Phong told Melendez-Cruz about the Sunstone fellowship. 

Melendez-Cruz took the fellowship, becoming the fifth person at Sunstone who studied at the USC Price School. 

“Seeing Giselle win the competition and seeing how much potential she had, I reached out to her to see if she was interested in being a fellow,” Phong said. “It’s nice to see this full circle of someone participating in the competition, and now they work for Sunstone.”

USC as a Community

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, Theylinn Garcia decided it was the right time to pursue higher education. 

For Garcia – now an eligibility worker supervisor for San Bernardino County – pursuing her master degree in health administration was an easy choice but deciding where to apply took more consideration. A co-worker encouraged her to explore USC Price, and although the decision felt like a big leap, it quickly paid off.

“I never thought I was going to be a USC student, and now here I am,” Garcia said. 

She’s now enrolled in USC’s online Executive Master of Health Administration (EMHA) program, which is built for professionals already established in healthcare or management, preparing them for top leadership roles through courses in finance, operations, health information systems, policy and, of course, people management. (Read more about her story here.)

Garcia is not only thrilled with what she’s learning in her classes and from her professors, but also with the connections she’s making with other experienced professionals. From the start, teachers, staff and fellow students have reached out to support her, quickly expanding her network and proving that the much-talked-about Trojan Family is real.

“I was in Texas a few weeks ago in my USC shirt and hat, and I ran into people that were also in USC gear. Right away, we shared the V for victory. You don’t get that with many universities. It’s true community, true friendship,” she said.