Susan Greiner Darby '91 surprised marketing sales students when the guest speaker asked for résumés as she introduced herself.

"If you take away one thing from our conversation, always be able to measure and prove the results of your marketing program," Darby said during her July 15 visit.

The national program manager for Cisco Systems has spent more than 10 years helping develop the computer networking company into a Fortune 500 competitor. After graduating from SUNY Oswego with a degree in communications, Darby found her niche in the field of sales and marketing.

Today she manages Cisco's mobile marketing team, which cruises around the country in multi-million-dollar buses loaded with the latest technology. She brought one of her vehicles to campus for the students to experience.

Darby believes that bringing products to people for them to touch and feel instead of simply giving potential clients figures and images makes the mobile marketing strategy a success.

"Our goal is not to sell [people] a router or an access point. It's to help them solve their business problems," Darby said. "This is a way for us to showcase how the solution can benefit the customer."

When it came time to decide on a college, it wasn't difficult to make the choice to attend her mother Thelma Aa Taylor's '61 alma mater. She recalled the deeply rooted connections she had made while enrolled at SUNY Oswego -- both with people and the lake -- that last even today.

"My college roommate is now my 12-year-old's godmother," said Darby. "One night we were walking back from The 'Shed and I was kind of joking with her. I said 'I'm going to make you the godmother of my firstborn child.' Little did she know I really [meant it]."

-- Jose Terrero '10

Oswego Alumni Association, Inc.
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Email: alumni@oswego.edu
Web site: www.oswego.edu/alumni