As the son of a fire chief and a teacher, Erik Yost understood the importance of responding immediately to emergencies as well as long-term planning.
They require project management, and Yost, a Grand Canyon University alumnus, melds immediate response and long-term planning into the research field as a research program manager for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Quantum Photonics and AI Group.
When GCU Colangelo College of Business professor and Project Management Club advisor Paul Waterman asked if he and eight students could travel to MIT for four days in late February to learn more about project management and explore other areas, Yost welcomed them without hesitation.
"We were there to learn about quantum photonics (the physical science of light waves) and what that is, but ultimately, (the visit) showed us that you don’t have to be in the box of what school will push us (toward),” said the club's president, Sam Street, one of the eight students on the trip. “It’s that mindset of being a self-starter and an entrepreneur that has project management skills to do whatever you want to do.”
The GCU group, which included Chair of Entrepreneurship and Canyon Angels Chairman Tim Kelley, visited select labs and quantum computers, as well as the MIT and Harvard business schools and Harvard Law School. Waterman saw that the two institutions share classes, research and libraries.
Yost and Street are mindful of Waterman’s analogy that the duties of a project manager are similar to those of a conductor who may not share the same skills of a violinist but can find a way to pair those skills with the rest of the symphony to make a harmonic sound.
It's what Yost does at MIT. He may not know everything technically that the engineers, software developers and scientists know, but he "ultimately does that job to meet with them in one-on-ones, and as a group, and ... pushes the goal of research translation to be complete,” Street said.
Yost's undergraduate years at GCU were highlighted by co-founding STELLAR (Space Technology and Engineering for Launching Life Application Research), the group that sent a microbial fuel cell to the U.S. National Lab on the International Space Station. The hope was to find a viable energy source to help underdeveloped communities. He also was an Honors College student, a student researcher as part of the Research and Design Program, a Global Outreach leader and member of the men’s water polo team.
He emphasized that project management isn’t limited to project managers, but it can be applied to professions such as law, medicine (his wife works at Harvard Medical School) and quantum artificial intelligence research.
“I try to, hopefully, help open their eyes and say, ‘Hey, if you know a little bit more about project management, it's going to help whatever field or career you're in and help it move forward,’ “ Yost said.
Before switching his major at GCU to business management, Yost observed that the most successful engineers were those who communicated effectively, even with those studying other majors, like business.
“It's the same thing with pretty much every major,” said Yost, adding that he spoke frequently with Honors College dean Dr. Breanna Naegeli and LaBelle Labs President and GCU College of Engineering and Technology professor Dr. Jeff LaBelle on finding ways to improve students’ vernacular.
Waterman tells nursing students that when someone is admitted to the emergency room because of an accident, it’s a project.
“It’s a unique, time-constrained event with an outcome,” Waterman said. “That’s a project. You are a project manager. You need to know how to leverage your resources and execute to accomplish your goal.
“In this case, it’s perhaps the life of your patient. Dealing with complex systems, everything is a project if you think about the world that way.”
Yost performed a TEDxGCU talk in 2022 titled “The Loop of Discipleship,” which highlighted mentoring the STELLAR team while empowering others to assist the next group of leaders.
That resonated with the students who weren’t fazed by campuses such as MIT and nearby Harvard.
“It's all about work ethic,” said Audrey Martin, Project Management Club director of events and a business administration major with an emphasis in analytics. “How are you willing to work to get this accomplished versus someone who went to Yale or Harvard? They may be super smart, but do they have that work ethic over you?”
And “people skills are very important,” Martin added. “Communicating – it's the key to everything, right?”
Ironically, Yost wasn’t introduced to project management in a formal setting until his senior year at GCU, when he enrolled in a capstone class with no firm postgraduate plans.
“Paul was my teacher, and he said, ‘I’m offering the DASM (Disciplined Agile Scrum Master) class. You guys should take it,’" Yost said.
A DASM certificate, a globally recognized certificate that shows a student has the skills to lead agile teams and sculpt their ways of working, would look good on the resume of a graduating senior.
"That class opened the door for me," Yost said. "I've been a big fan of the Project Management Club ever since, and I encourage anyone from any degree to get involved."
Yost learned during the class how to apply proper words to the projects he had been working on with NASA and his humanitarian company. He met Waterman more frequently, seeing more project management information in a more formal setting.
Yost worked as a senior project coordinator for the Global Center for Applied Health Research at Arizona State and at the Center for Simulation and Innovation at the University of Arizona College of Medicine before joining MIT in February 2024 as a program manager.
“Part of Erik's personality is that if he can get the students who desire to learn this industry, that have a hard-working personality and are self-starters, he wants to get them out there.”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at Mark.Gonzales@gcu.edu
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