Ryan Emerson canoed the Mississippi River alone from central Minnesota to New Orleans in 88 days. Three weeks later, he started his Master’s in Applied Economics. It should come as no surprise, then, that Emerson’s current colleagues describe him as motivated and focused.
Emerson has developed his own style of work/life balance. When traveling for work, he typically finds an opportunity to hop on a mountain bike to explore a new trail or walk around a new city for hours.
Work travel, from Chicago to San Fran to Austin to India, enables Emerson to be an explorer—in the field of analytics, in the woods, and on the page. This attitude of discovery applies to his affinity for economics as well.
“My initial interest in applied economics came from an interest in mathematics and how people interact and survive in this world. Economics is the study of human survival and flourishing, and that is fascinating to me.”
This passion serves Emerson well in his position as analytics development leader at Koch Industries in Atlanta where he leads a team based in Bangalore, India. With his data analytics team, Emerson works on projects ranging from business intelligence to data science and everything in between—with a heavy emphasis on processes in talent, manufacturing, and supply chain.
Emerson and his team work as internal consultants to other Koch Industries companies to help them meet their goals. His team helps fellow Koch employees with their analytics projects, including consulting, project management, data architecture and engineering, data science, and data visualization.
Emerson values the variety in his other responsibilities, including customer demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and supply chain and production rate analytics. Emerson says, “I sit at Koch’s corporate service provider, so I work on a new project or industry every month. It’s never the same day twice.” He likes being a generalist, so he can “play whatever position is necessary to create the highest value.”
Looking to the future, Emerson wants to grow his technical and management skills, especially Amazon Web Services (AWS), as well as advance in IT and data analytics management.
Considering a career in economics? Learn about the Bryan School’s MA in Applied Economics program, or contact Graduate Recruitment Assistant Devante Monds at 336.334.4657 or bryangrad@uncg.edu.
