The Monroe Street Journal

Issue date: 1/22/08 Section: Outside Ross

Media Credit: Kent Westlund [Click to enlarge]

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wake up and be someone else? You know, like switching lives with someone just for one day just to see what it would be like? Well, unfortunately that is not possible (yet), but you can get close to it. These five Ross MBA1s did just that this last November when they participated in the Toyota "Day in the Life" program.

It was a Thursday night, and after arriving at Los Angeles Airport we went directly to Manhattan Beach to meet with Marcia Meyerowitz (MBA'04), Yuval Steiman (MBA '99) and Kelly Mao (MBA'03) for a delicious dinner at Café Pierre. There we enjoyed talking about both Toyota and the RyanAir strategy case, which apparently has been in the Ross curriculum since at least the mid-90s. After dinner we took a stroll to the pier, relishing our time away from the Ann Arbor winter.

We weathered what was, according to each Toyota employee, the first rain of the year on our way to Toyota the next morning. After picking up breakfast and specialty coffee at the Starbucks onsite, we met with Claudia Rodriguez, a Lexus Engagement Marketer. Claudia discussed the difficulties of promoting the Lexus brand at events like the PGA Tour and the US Open, and also mentioned being in the same room as tennis star Andy Roddick.

Next up were Ken Lin (MBA'96) and Ricky Lao (MBA'05), with whom we had a very interesting conversation about the projects they were forbidden to speak about. Ricky also was quick to mention that one of his perks was driving the soon to be released Lexus IS F, a performance tuned 460-horsepower version of the popular IS. Later in the day, we had a chance to see this vehicle. Although pricing details weren't yet available, the consensus seemed to be somewhere around two years of Ross MBA tuition. Clay Luthy (MBA'07) next talked with us about Toyota's efforts to gauge their customers' reactions, and he introduced us to a very friendly call center computer.

Lunch time came, and we headed to L.A.'s best kept secret: the Toyota Vintage Auto Museum. In this covert location we found ourselves surrounded by clay models, concept cars, and several vintage production vehicles. Among them we recognized a couple of 2000GTs (like the one Sean Connery drove in You Only Live Twice), a 1936 Toyota "Classic" Model AA, and a CART racing car. We walked around the museum with Andrew Coetzee (MBA'88) who explained the product development process and showed us interesting features on concept cars.

Continued...

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