Lisa McPhie Sagers, a long-time board WTA member, recently retired from her successful career as the Director of Operations for Air & Sea International. Sagers currently teaches a course at Salt Lake Community College, and still values the lessons learned from her employees and co-workers.
Sagers has been with WTA since the 80’s and has held positions as the Treasurer, Secretary, First and Second Vice President, and was the organization’s second female President. Although she has retired, Sagers shares that “I'm just happy to help however I can.” One of her projects was starting and organizing WTA’s annual golf tournament, which successfully generated funds for scholarships and fostered networking opportunities for local businesses.
Although the golf tournament has not been active in the past couple years, Sagers remembers the work she put in to organize the event. Most importantly, “the support of the members and the board” made each tournament successful. Businesses sponsored “a hole, so they could set up a booth at the hole talk to people about their company.” Moreover, international business students from various universities were awarded scholarships at the end of each tournament, “which was nice. That was the whole purpose…to have the scholarship go to the different colleges that we had selected and worked with.” In the future, Sagers looks forward to hosting more events like the tournament, restoring a sense of physical community in a post COVID-19 world.
When reflecting on her years at WTA, Sagers believes that it is “a very wonderful platform for people that need to learn and be taught about international business. One of the things that's important about this organization is we can teach, we can mentor, we can network, and…[after] COVID…I think we just need to get us out there and in front of people.”
Based on her years of experience in both international business and with WTA, Sagers strongly believes that both college students and business professionals should not only become members, but “they need to get in, meet with people, [and] listen to mentors. A lot of us have been doing this for [years]. I've been doing it over 40 years, and we know some of the shortcuts, the ins and outs, the things that are working, that are not working, and I think that supporting and being in a group like us would help them with getting their feet wet in international marketing.” Moreover, Sagers believes that since “There's so many of us that [are] either importing, exporting…on the ground level, or at the corporate level…there's so much there that we have to offer.”
Sagers has been a valuable member of WTA for the past 40 years and continues to help the organization thrive. Networking and finding a mentor are vital steps for an individual or company’s journey to international success. To get connected, become a member today and follow our LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up to date on upcoming events.