Voices Ringing
Carroll High School Blog
Meet Dr. Stephen Blatt, MD '77
What are your job responsibilities and duties?
I'm the Medical Director for Infectious Diseases at TriHealth hospital system in Cincinnati. I’m responsible for setting the policy for management of patients with infection problems. In this setting, we have a large steering committee for our COVID-19 preparations and management, and I help run that.
What are the daily tasks you perform?
We monitor the data about how many cases we are seeing. We monitor how those patients are doing, what their outcomes are, how many are discharged, if we have any patients that die from the infection. We also monitor the infections among our healthcare workers to make sure that they’re not getting infections from our patients. We monitor the protective equipment that’s available to make sure we have adequate supplies. We monitor our testing capability to make sure that we’re able to provide testing for both our patients and any employees that need it. Then, we basically troubleshoot to make sure the whole system is working properly, that patients and employees are protected and getting the treatment that they need. We also work with our research department to try to get clinical trials of medications, experimental medications that are available for our patients that need them. I also see the patients. Some of the patients that are sicker, we get consulted on to help with their care.
How has the pandemic changed your job responsibilities?
It’s the same kinds of things that I was doing, but obviously it wasn’t COVID-19 that we were worried about. It was more common things like antibiotic resistant bacteria or other infections that people can catch in a hospital. We spend a lot of time trying to prevent those kind of infections.
Why is your work considered essential?
It’s very important that we provide the best care we can for patients who have this novel virus and protect our health care workers who are at risk of getting it and deserve to be protected. If the health care workers can’t stay healthy during this time, then we won’t be able to provide care for any of the patients who come in.
What precautions are you taking to ensure coronavirus safety?
We’re a lot more careful about making sure we have the right equipment and wear it correctly. Around all the patients who we know or suspect might have COVID-19, the healthcare workers all wear gowns, gloves, face shields, and special kinds of masks called respirators that we have to have each worker fit-tested for so that they wear them correctly and we know that they’re not breathing air that hasn’t gone through the filter. That takes a lot of time and is a pretty expensive proposition that came out of nowhere.
What makes coronavirus different that more typical infectious diseases?
It is highly contagious, and it is a lot more dangerous than the flu. The number of deaths is far exceeding what we would expect in a typical flu season, and it’s really been compressed within a very short timeframe here in the United States. There have been 70,000 deaths in a two month period which is at least three or four times what we would see in a typical flu season. It’s a lot more dangerous because nobody has any immunity to it, that’s the problem.
What are the lessons you learned at Carroll High School that are helping you navigate this situation?
Carroll was really essential at learning to look at the whole picture of a problem, analyze it, and come up with a rational approach to dealing with it. One of my mentors was Mr. Joe Sens who taught chemistry at the time. He was just great at being calm, evaluating an issue, and coming up with rational solutions. There’s been a lot of panic around this whole COVID-19 issue that really doesn’t need to be. It’s just a matter of understanding it as best we can and applying rational solutions.
Meet Lori (Marshall) Hallmark '99
My name is Lori Hallmark, and I am an assurance partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). My current role there primarily includes serving as an audit partner in our Private Company Services team in the Cincinnati office. In addition to my day to day role as an audit partner, I am also a part of the national team that helps determine the audit methodology, tools, and technology used by more than 2,000 team members nationally in our Private Company Services practice.
Climbing the ladder at PwC
I joined PwC after graduating from the University of Dayton (UD). Since joining PwC, I’ve been very fortunate to be able to serve in a number of different roles within the Firm. I started my time as a tax associate but quickly learned that completing tax returns was not for me! I watched the audit staff spend their time with clients every day, learning about how businesses work and getting to know people within the organization. I quickly knew that I wasn’t meant to be hanging out in the office every day and that working directly with clients to help them meet their business objectives was something that would really resonate with me. As I spent more time in the audit practice, I came to really enjoy working particularly with private company clients and understanding how the auditing standards could be applied differently in our audit work. This led to a number of different roles from consulting with teams on the application of auditing standards all the way to spending 18 months in our Tampa, Fla., office with a global team helping to rewrite the manual that PwC uses to conduct its audits.
Foundational Catholic education
Fortunately, my time at both UD and Carroll High School really prepared me to take on challenging assignments and provided me with the basis I needed to be successful. While I didn’t take any business classes in my time at Carroll, I did take plenty of challenging courses that taught me what it meant to be a life long learner. These courses taught me not just about text book learning, but how to apply that learning in the real world. Whether it was Science Fair or Youth in Government, being able to work in teams in an experiential way provided me with a strong basis for how I operate in the business world today. More important than anything I learned in specific course work though are the lessons I learned about the kind of person I wanted to be. Carroll provided me with one of my first significant opportunities to experience the joy of providing service to others. Through Action Appalachia, I worked with my classmates collecting donations of clothing to take to those who needed it. As we loaded the semi and prepared for the trip, I looked forward to spending time with my friends on what I expected to be a fun trip. I didn’t realize that the truly rewarding part of this would be seeing the real value of making a difference in someone else’s life.
Continuing a Carroll legacy
All of these lessons have been instrumental to me as an individual, but I saw Carroll from an entirely new light as the parent of a student. I thought that I knew how important Carroll had been in influencing my development in a positive way – enough that it was extremely important to me as a parent for my daughter to experience the same benefits. Experiencing the impact of the school and community from a parent’s perspective was truly amazing. Because my daughter Emma Mihlbachler '18 was involved in completely different aspects of the Carroll community as part of the music program, I was able to see a whole new side of what Carroll has to offer. I was also able to experience again the value of providing service to others as the food mom for the band. These years were absolutely some of the best I have spent, perhaps even better than when I was there as a student! Seeing the absolutely tireless effort that the parents, administration, band directors, and other members of the Carroll community put into the students from a parent's perspective really confirmed everything that I had experienced as a student and more. Now watching her as a successful college student in the nursing program at Case Western Reserve University, I am even more amazed at what a Carroll High School education provides its students.
Carroll High School taught me that it's okay to fail
I promise this isn’t a click-bait headline. This is my attempt not to bury the lead. You see, I fail every single day. From my freshman year at Carroll High School (and definitely before) and through more than 20 years since leaving (and definitely in the future), my life has consisted of a series of micro-failures, and there was a time I feared that failure.
There’s very little I’m afraid of. Heights don’t bother me. I think spiders get a bad rap. I’m more comfortable flying on a plane than I am driving to the grocery store. Slasher films, zombies, running alone through Chicago – they all provide an adrenaline rush. But after I graduated from Carroll High School, I was afraid of failure. Was I ready? Could I succeed? Will I remember the definition of ‘health’ (Yes, Mrs. Lane, I remember it’s ‘optimal personal fitness for full, fruitful, creative and spiritual living)? These same concerns have tagged along with me as I’ve worked as a marketing turn-around expert for technology and media/entertainment companies.
But my ability to embrace, learn from, and build on my failures are a result of my time at Carroll.
Fail together, in public, with confidence
If you were in English class with Miss Wourms or a Latin class with Sister Mary Alice Stein, you can probably recall the repeated rework of diagramming sentences or conjugating Latin verbs. I can remember the frustrations of Calculus and trying to follow along with Shakespeare but what stands out the most were the teachers who encouraged us to own our failures while learning these concepts. We shared them as a class, discussed the challenges, and then broke down why they occurred so we could build on those learnings. This taught me throughout my career how to develop an environment that reinforces resiliency, risk-taking, perseverance, and adaptation. I learned how to focus on solutions instead of blame and how to respond to failure.
Fail fast, and incrementally, in order to create
In business we preach, “fail and fail fast” or “create an environment where employees have the freedom to fail”. Even if the company culture truly supports that, failure doesn’t happen often. Companies hire experienced employees who have proven success in their field. Failure is rare. However, when you’re in school and learning, almost everything you first attempt fails. I believe this is why so many professionals become averse to learning. At Carroll, I failed over and over and over and over again. In my academics, athletics, and social structure, I was pushed so incredibly far outside of my comfort zone. I learned to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and that has served me well. It has taught me that micro-failures are necessary if I’m going to continue to learn and develop.
Fail free of judgment
While at Carroll, I was surrounded by teachers and coaches that encouraged authenticity. I was taught the importance of transparency, compassion, commitment, ethics, and setting the tone. I was never fearful – well, except when walking to the lunch room and my shirttail was untucked. These teachings have allowed me to foster a culture in my teams that embraces failure, free of fear. By developing a culture of authenticity, I’ve found that I can improve manager-employee relations, respond to change, and set goals. And when you fail free of judgment, you can begin to replace blame with curiosity. Relationships are better and more interesting when working together and building. It’s too easy just to fight, but relationships with tension and conflict make life interesting because not all tension and conflict is bad. Competing and differing ideas are great things.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to spend the better part of seventeen years working for innovative companies and iconic brands like The Second City and Oracle. I’ve worked with immense talents that push the level of creativity and challenges common convention. I’ve also learned to view everyone as a person with a special story to tell, to foster talent, and to teach. All of these learnings and all of my success can absolutely be attributed to my time at Carroll High School. But the most important lesson is to follow the fear and do what scares me the most. Carroll has taught me that if it’s uncomfortable, do it more.
Meet Michael Franz '05
My name is Michael Franz, and I have been Carroll High School’s Director of Communications since September 2015. My role at Carroll boils down to this: tell the story of Carroll High School. I accomplish this through writing profiles, shooting pictures, producing videos, designing ads, and guiding our communications strategy and resources that ultimately appear in digital, broadcast, and print media.
After graduating from Carroll, I attended the University of Tampa in Florida to major in communications with an emphasis on writing and journalism. The years I spent in Florida brought many personal and educational blessings in my life. I dreamed of being the next great American sports broadcaster and was fortunate enough to gain professional experience while pursuing my degree. I’ll always remember my days as an intern at the area’s largest sports talk radio station (WHBO AM 1040) and the Tampa Bay area’s NBC affiliate. Tampa Bay hosted the Super Bowl during my final semester in spring 2009. Helping with our coverage leading up to the game is one of the highlights of my professional career. I was even able to earn a paycheck covering high school sports for the Tampa Tribune while finishing my degree.
My first journalism job after graduation was working as an assignment editor back home in Dayton at WHIO-TV in November 2009. I learned so much from so many great people, especially long time Sports Director Mike Hartsock who gave me the opportunity to cover sports in Dayton. I covered countless high school games and athletes, Ohio State football, and Dayton Flyers basketball, including following the team to Buffalo, New York, and Memphis, Tennessee on their Elite Eight run in 2014.
During my time as a student at Carroll, the idea of one day coming home as a staff member appealed to me even before graduating in 2005. Unfortunately, working as a teacher was something that I thought did not fit my skill set, and the position I have now did not exist at the time, so I did not spend much time throughout college and my early career thinking about how I could return to Carroll. When I saw a Facebook post on Carroll’s page in August 2015 seeking applicants for the new position of Director of Communications, I heard a voice in my heart telling me that this opportunity was made for me.
While the early part of my career prepared me for my current role at Carroll, my time as a student will always be the most formative years of my life. Coming from a school that did not send many students to Carroll, I quickly learned how crucial communication with strangers would be to my future success. The five-sentence outline structure I learned from Miss Downie (now Mrs. Clark) in freshman Honors English gave me the tools I needed to efficiently conceptualize and write not just papers and essays for college, but also many projects working as a journalist and communications manager. Walking the school’s halls and interacting with current students on a daily basis shows me that today’s faculty and staff are still instilling those same values and lessons in current students, and continuing that Patriot legacy is one of the greatest joys in my life.