My name is Aubrey Baumiller, and I am a second-year in the School of Business. I am double majoring in Accounting and Marketing on a Pre-Law track as I plan to go to law school post-graduation. Something unique about me is that I am a fourth-generation Pitt student. This year, for the ACRI project, we are working on secondary research for the STEPP Forward Program that we will target for business idea validation and business planning activities. As a whole group, we are doing research at the county, state, and national level so that the businesses have a general overview. On an individual level, we each are working with a business or a set of businesses, with a few other students grouped by business type. Specifically for me, I am working with PTAH Family Services, which is a commercial cleaning business that opened in 2021 and is currently looking to increase capacity so that they can take on more cleaning contracts. Additionally, they are looking at expanding into government contracts and any certificate programs needed to excel in that area.

I feel that this project is important because we are actively helping an underserved community that is not always provided with resources needed to succeed. By giving the community resources, we are able to help people succeed in their business ventures, and ultimately that makes the community better as a whole and can lead to more development down the line which creates a lasting impact from the project. I initially hope from the project that the businesses we are working with are able to successfully get off the ground if they are a new idea, or if they are an existing business, I hope that they are able to expand. Additionally, I hope it shows the community the benefit of accepting help from an outside source because, coming from Fayette County, Perryopolis specifically, I feel that the community is sometimes wary of outside help because they feel that they can do it themselves, which is not a bad thing, but it does tend to limit expansion of the area.

My current professional goals are to take my LSAT, as I am graduating a year early, which means my senior year is next year, so I would like to take my LSAT  at the end of the school year so that I am not stressed when it comes time for application season next fall, since I do not want to take a gap year. Additionally, I want to study abroad in Florence this summer, as I believe there is a lot to learn from studying abroad and exploring different cultures that you would not learn in a regular classroom. I feel like the ACRI program will help me with my goals of going to law school because it will help develop the research skills that I will need in law school and my client-facing skills, which are a major part of being an attorney. Additionally, I will gain hands-on experience presenting for the ACRI at the end of the semester, which will further my public speaking skills when it comes to academic presenting, which I do not have a ton of experience with so far. When exploring the government contract side of business for PTAH Family Services, I will be exposed to some of the legal parts of the business world, which will give me general legal knowledge that I can expand upon in the future.

I decided to join this project because I wanted to use the knowledge I have gained from studying abroad and add a different perspective to the community that I am from, because giving back to my community is a huge part of who I am, and I feel that my community is not always a priority. Finding this project showed me that it is important to some people. After the project concludes this semester, I feel that I will gain multiple valuable transferable skills, but most importantly I feel that the knowledge I gain from research and the client facing communication will aid me the best as going into the law field as those are major components of the job description.