“I was looking for schools that would give me credentials in a marketable profession should I decide not to go on to graduate school. Being the typical mixed up kid, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and at that time it was not easy to get a job. ILR was small, specialized, and had a marketable degree.

“I remember George Hildebrand, who taught ‘Capitalism and the American System of Enterprise’...I enjoyed him so much that when I was asked to teach at Cornell Extension in Rochester, I modeled the course after George’s. I was 23 at the time and working for Rochester Telephone. When the certificates were conferred I remember Professor Doherty looking over his halfglasses and commenting about the students being lucky to have such an esteemed professor.

“Cornell/ILR gave me the best preparation...it gave me the ability and the process to know how to research, how to dig through a lot of data, and what to get out of it. Cornell/ILR gave me the ability to know ‘what’s the meat here?’ and the discipline to extract data and make decisions based on that information or even based on imperfect information. I was recruited into HR from ILR and I’ve spent my entire career in it. I’ve done it all, domestic and international.

“I went to work for UTC/Otis Elevator as Manager, HR, Latin America. I did compensation, manpower and development, labor relations/negotiations in Brazil, Panama, and Bermuda, in Ecuador and Columbia. It was fantastic for a kid who had never been west of Chicago before! I had studied French in high school, but learned Spanish in a two-week immersion course. At Otis, I really developed my cultural sensibilities but also the ability to work comfortably with high-placed individuals. At Reliance I went from being Assistant VP, HR to Senior VP, HR in three years. We had gone from a $200 million company to a $6.5 billion company in five years. This position gave me my business smarts in an extraordinary entrepreneurial, high-growth environment. At Citibank, I was vice-president of HR for the U.S. and Europe consumer bank with 25,000 employees, half in the U.S. and half in Europe. It gave me extensive exposure to Europe, and taught me to deal with HR issues on a very large scale. When the call to come to CIGNA International came, we (CIGNA International) were in 58 countries with every business line in every country. The international division is separate from domestic, and policies, practices, compensation, health, welfare, labor relations—everything falls under you and all of the cultures, businesses, and laws are different.

“I think it’s very important that students leave the ILR School knowing how to problem-solve and how to make decisions. Secondly, they need to know how business really works: the fundamentals, capitalism, different types of economies, how companies make money, policy, and litigation. Finally, you should always maintain their ethics and personal integrity. I have been lucky never to have had to compromise on that, and it’s very important to me.

“Rigorous work habits and work ethics at Cornell have made me a hard-working and efficient employee. I think employers know that if a student has gone through Cornell and survived, they will probably be a good and smart worker.”

—Adam Booksin, ILR Connections, Winter 2003

- Adam L. Booksin, ‘79