Tag Archives: career advice
Erin Cowhey Designs Spaces That Tell Her Clients’ Stories
Erin Cowhey is an Amherst College classmate and architect whose profession is awfully interesting its own right, but it interests me more than ever now that my daughter works as an interior designer. Erin runs her own firm in Brooklyn but wasn’t always destined for the field. She enrolled at Amherst with every intention to go pre-med before pivoting to architecture. In this episode, she talks about how personal tragedy reshaped her career path and how she’s balanced running her own firm with raising a family in New York City. What emerges is a portrait of someone who designs homes with the same care she’s taken to designing a meaningful life.
Highlights include:
Pivot with purpose: Erin’s fascination with art and architecture led her to trade medicine for design.
Resilience in loss: After losing her first child, she rebuilt her life and career by starting her own firm, prioritizing flexibility and family.
Brooklyn life, fully lived: She reflects on the joys and contradictions of raising kids in the city she and her husband, a landscape architect, love so deeply.
Design as storytelling: Erin views every project as a chapter in her clients’ lives: spaces that evolve as families grow and change.
Looking ahead: With her children nearing college, Erin is eager to take on larger, collaborative projects and to keep exploring creativity on her own terms.
Plus, Erin nominates two new guests to go next.
To learn more about her practice and get in touch, email her at erincowhey@gmail.com or visit her website, erincowhey.com.
Pete Lalor Brings a Coach’s Mindset to Surgery and Parenting
Pete Lalor, a bariatric surgeon and medical director in Ohio, launched from Amherst College to Ireland to the hockey rinks of Holland—but today we find him leading a surgical weight loss program. A former student-athlete, Pete shares how his performance mentality evolved from athletics into medicine, and why he remains a student of psychology even decades after majoring in it at Amherst.
Pete opens up about parenting five kids, the future of medicine (including the hype and limitations of GLP-1 weight loss drugs), and how youth sports today have left him feeling torn about their value and trade-offs. He also reflects on how emotional intelligence is a critical skill, whether you’re in the operating room or the living room.
Highlights include:
His enduring interest in psychology helps him be a more empathetic physician and parent.
Pete’s perspective on GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic is nuanced: they can help, but they’re no magic bullet for obesity.
The values he absorbed at Amherst and in sports—grit, teamwork, performance—still shape his life today.
How he’s envisioning the next 20 years, including how he might apply his extensive experience and curiosities in a new direction.
The two Amherst classmates he wants me to interview next.
To get in touch with Pete, email him at petelalor@hotmail.com and learn more about his practice at http://www.woodcountyhospital.org.
Toby King Made His Own Path—From Geology To Bluegrass To Academia
When I think of people who’ve allowed life’s serendipities to shape their course, Toby King comes immediately to mind. In this episode, he walks me through a zigzagging journey that began with a keg behind the geology building before his freshman year at Amherst College even started and took him to UNC Asheville, where he’s Associate Professor and Chair of Music and, starting this fall, the chair of the UNC Faculty Assembly. Toby’s story is a reminder that we don’t always have to know where we’re going—as long as we stay open to what moves us.
Highlights include:
How Toby chose geology at Amherst after bonding with faculty during a pre-orientation outing—and a well-timed beer
Why he walked away from a geology career after a frank conversation with a mentor during an oil company internship
Why he taught himself how to play the banjo, and how he leveraged his passion for music into a spot at Columbia’s graduate program and a teaching role at Sarah Lawrence
The importance of prioritizing connections over content in teaching, and how the Amherst College geology department has influenced his approach to at UNC Asheville
The Amherst College classmates he wants me to interview next
To get in touch with Toby, check out his page on the UNC Asheville website: https://www.unca.edu/person/jonathan-king/.
Maki Uchiyama Realized Everything Would Be Okay
Maki Uchiyama grew up as an only child in upstate New York, where her family’s Japanese restaurant functioned as both a business and a fourth member of the household. The experience left her with a certain set of skills—versatility, the ability to multitask, customer diplomacy, and, of course, how to cook. After graduating from Amherst College in 1994 with a degree in political science, Maki joined the Japan Foundation, eventually pivoting to law school and a fulfilling career in real estate law.
Today, she serves as general counsel for Advenir Azora Development, while also navigating the busy, blended rhythms of life as a stepmother to four children, wife, and grandmother.
In this episode Maki reflects on:
Her professional path
The influence of her Amherst education
A family-first mindset she’s cultivated over time
Advice she wishes she could give the younger version of herself: No matter the bumps, pivots, or surprises—it will all work out
The Amherst College Class of ’94 classmates she wants to hear from next
To get in touch with Maki, email at smuchiyama@gmail.com or find her on LinkedIn.
Andy Liu Plans To Live To 100. He Thinks We Should Plan For It, Too.
Andy Liu plans to live to be at least 100 years old and has no intention of easing into retirement.
His 30+ year career in healthcare has him feeling confident that he’ll not only live to see 100, but that he’ll remain healthy and active in his elderly years. In fact, he’s ditching the typical, first-world plan of working into his 60s and then spending the rest of his days living a life of leisure. He thinks those of us who graduated college in the ’90s should follow his lead.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why Andy thinks more of us will live to see 100 years old
His ambitious plans for his second 50 years
Andy’s typical reaction to someone telling him “It can’t be done,” and how that drives him
Why he finds himself in the 34th year of a four-year plan to return to his home state of California
The members of the Amherst College Class of 1994 he wants me to interview next
Justin Neely Navigates Shift From IT And Digital To The Arts
Justin Neely may be the most liberal arts-y person you’ll ever know. A polyglot (I had to look it up, too; it means one who is fluent in speaking and/or writing many languages), Justin has achieved impressive things in both the world of business and in the arts.
As with many guests on Pre-Made, Justin is navigating a significant life pivot, in this case from a career defined mostly but not entirely by IT and digital marketing to one that’s entirely focused on his art, at least for now.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
How a trip to the then-Soviet Union nearly derailed his college plans
The dramatic impact the film Basquiat (starring Amherst College graduate Jeffrey Wright ’87) made on Justin
How former members of Amherst rock band Rosemary Caine encouraged Justin to apply for and eventually land a side hustle he was unqualified to do at the time, and how that work propelled him into a business career in IT and digital
The one person in the Amherst Class of 1994 Justin wants me to talk to next
All about Justin’s artwork and its expression of his worldview, which you can explore on his website, justinneely.com
Photo courtesy of Gordon Eriksen (http://gordoneriksen.com/)
How To Lead Marketing Transformation
When you think about the typical mobile app and the marketing that goes into it, what comes to mind? If you’re like me, you’re probably imagining a game or utility with an addressable market of millions. You think of apps that need that sort of scale in order to generate meaningful revenue from micropayments that relatively […]
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