Bezilla, Park Using Engineering Degrees in Golf Industry
4/26/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
FOLLOWING THE DRIVE
Former U-M golfers combine engineering degrees with passion for the game
By Andrea Parker, U-M Athletic Media Relations
After winning nine tournaments and earning a PGA Tour single-season record $10,905,166 last year, golfer Vijay Singh was voted the 2004 Player of the Year. This year former University of Michigan golfer Stephanie Bezilla is doing her best to help Singh stay on top.
Bezilla and former U-M teammate Sharon Park are engineers at Cleveland Golf, the world's fourth largest golf equipment company. Both women graduated from U-M with degrees in engineering and have been able to combine their flair for math and science with their love for the game of golf in their current positions.
Bezilla (left) and Park (right) joined coach Kathy Teichert and the Wolverines for an alumnae match on the team's trip to Arizona in early March.
Bezilla takes input from Singh and other Tour players who use Cleveland's equipment and customizes their clubs to their exact specifications. Park starts at square one of the club-creation process as project engineer for the irons group, overseeing all iron projects from start to finish.
While Bezilla's ultimate goal at U-M was to get a degree in mechanical engineering and apply it to the golf industry, Park had dreams of playing golf professionally before realizing that she wanted to focus on academics and a career in engineering.
"I had thoughts of playing professionally as I left high school, but after the first semester of playing at Michigan and learning to balance school and golf, I realized that playing professional golf wasn't really the career I wanted," said Park a Lexington, Ky., native who played for U-M from 1995-99. "From then I focused more on my academics, which is one of the main reasons I chose U-M, because you can't beat the top engineering program."
Research and Tour project engineer Bezilla agrees with Park that U-M boasts an impressive engineering program, and she took full advantage of it in order to get closer to the job of her dreams.
"I came to U-M with the sole objective of studying mechanical engineering and applying it to the golf industry," said Bezilla, who graduated in 2002. "I considered being able to design and engineer golf equipment a career that would provide the stability that playing professionally rarely affords, while still allowing me to explore my passion for the game."
Bezilla said that she loves the part of her job that allows her to rub elbows with some of the best golfers in the world, but she admits that she finds herself awestruck by their talents. She gets to explain newly developed products to Cleveland staff members such as major-championship winners Singh, David Toms and Shaun Micheel, and to make sure that they feel comfortable and confident in their equipment.
"I'm a project manager and engineer, so I get specs and communicate with agents and vendors regarding the needs of specific Tour players and make modifications for them," explained Bezilla.
Park interacts with the club designers and marketing specialists to see how they want the product to ultimately appear and perform, and overseas vendors that receive the specs, drawings and directions of how to make the club.
"We check and test clubs and make sure that everyone likes how they look and perform," said Park. "Once a product is in production, I just maintain it. It's kind of laid back at that point."
Bezilla is especially fond of the constant change in responsibility of her job. "I am responsible for woods, irons and wedges for the Tour, so the variety of product presents different challenges every day," said Bezilla. "I travel to Asia to solve product development problems and I also travel to PGA Tour events throughout the year to launch new products."
One might assume that traveling and testing new products is a perk, but Park insists that it's all just part of the job.
Park won an individual title in each of the final three years of her college career.
"I still get to play, test prototype clubs, build my own clubs, and I oversee all future and current iron projects from the design to manufacturing stages," reveals Park. "All manufacturing is done overseas in China and Taiwan, so I travel over there about four or five times a year. I also love getting the free products!"
Park and Bezilla, who were teammates in 1998-99 when Bezilla was a freshman and Park the team's captain, both believe that U-M prepared them academically and their participation on a Division I golf team gave them valuable experience and helped them develop the skills needed in order to succeed in a fulltime job.
"The intensity of being a student-athlete, plus the combination of the passion, dedication, competition, pride, honor and integrity required to be a student-athlete at one of the best schools in the country can prepare you for any future challenges," said Park.
A native of Grandville, Mich., Bezilla transitioned from undergrad to her first job at Callaway Golf with much ease. There she was more research oriented and applied skills she had learned in her mechanics and dynamics courses, but two years later she was recruited by Cleveland Golf. In her new position, she has more of a managing position but still uses her physics skills by looking at club placement and how club mass will impact a swing.
After graduating with All-Big Ten honors and the school's best career stroke average at the time, Park went on to two jobs in the medical device industry in five years before finding herself on the receiving end of a phone call from U-M coach Kathy Teichert.
Acting on a tip from Bezilla, a recruiter from Cleveland Golf called Teichert and asked her if she knew of any players who would be a good candidate for a job at the rapidly expanding company. Teichert recommended Park, who had golf experience and an engineering degree on her side, and soon after Park became a Cleveland Golf employee.
Teichert, currently in her 12th season as head coach of the women's golf team, was a key player in the development of Park and Bezilla while they were at U-M.
"I tried to instill the values of working hard, never giving up, being responsible, accountable, and being a team player," said Teichert. "It's all about balancing, priorities, and commitment. The women that truly want to make it work are the ones that are going to be successful both in life and in their careers."
It is no wonder that with the attitude Teichert maintains and the amount of time players and coaches spend together that each woman has had a bit of their coach's attitude and work ethic rub off on them.
"Coach Teichert taught me to approach every person in business and in life with respect and an open mind," said Bezilla. "If you can approach people with these things, you instantly have the ability to communicate with one another and work together to achieve your goals."
Often times Bezilla and Park work in teams, and they use the leadership and teamwork skills they acquired while playing golf at U-M to help communicate thoughts and ideas. Because of the amount of emphasis placed on teamwork while in her tenure at U-M, Bezilla says she feels more prepared in groups.
"Golf is an interesting dilemma because the sport is individual in nature," mused Bezilla. "However, playing golf on a team taught me how to rely on myself, but furthermore how to perform under the pressure of not letting your team down."
Bezilla helped Grandville High to back-to-back state titles in 1997 and 1998.
Park, the No. 1 player for the Wolverines her last three seasons, agrees and adds that working in a team at a job is not all that different from the relationships you have with people in life.
"You don't necessarily get to choose who you work with," said Park. "It stretches you as a person to learn to communicate and get along with everyone."
Almost everyone plays golf at Cleveland Golf, but not very many played in college, so the skills workers often have in common are design or production oriented rather than golf related.
"Everyone at Cleveland Golf loves the game," stated Park. "It makes it fun that everyone is passionate about the game and at all different skill levels."
In a company like Cleveland Golf that is currently between 300 and 400 employees large and rapidly growing, it is important for all workers to have a similar mindset towards the approach they take in designing and developing. They must be pioneers for future innovative products while providing the customer with the best available products, according to Park.
This creative mindset is not difficult to maintain in the new Cleveland Golf headquarters, located in Huntington Beach, California. Because of rapid expansion, the company moved to a much larger building at the end of December, and Bezilla believes that the increased amount of space in the new headquarters will make the company more efficient.
"We get more products out the door, make great use of investments, and we make sure we get good representation."
Park finds a sense of stability that goes along with the company's growth. She loves the excitement that accompanies the hiring of new people, especially since she is a "rookie" who has been at the company for only three months.
While they do not work together in the same departments, Park and Bezilla do echo each other's sentiments on the topic of their jobs. Both find themselves excited about what it is that they do each and every day at Cleveland Golf.
"I like the fact that I get to work every day at a game that I am passionate about and that the product that we develop makes the game more enjoyable," said Bezilla.
"I feel very blessed to be in an industry that I'm passionate about and to be applying what I studied in school," Park said. "It is a great opportunity and I am very grateful for it."
