All In on HCC
"The biggest value of any sort of education is the people that you're going to meet there, whether it's forming really good relationships with your professors or peers." – Dylan Pilon '12
Editor's Note: This is one of a continuing series of interviews with HCC alumni called "Alumni Voices."
After being accepted to Western New England College and facing a $44,000 annual price tag, Dylan Pilon ’12 reluctantly enrolled at Holyoke Community College, carrying the stigma he felt about attending community college while watching friends head to four-year schools. Then he took his first marketing class with Professor Ellen Majka.
"She told the class that she teaches the same marketing class with the same book and the same syllabus at Western New England,” Pilon remembers. “So, I was getting the same education for a fraction of the price. My perspective on HCC immediately changed after that.”
From then on, Pilon was all in on HCC. He immersed himself in campus opportunities, becoming vice president of the Entrepreneurship Club and participating in a new Topics in Business course, where he and his classmates visited companies throughout the Northeast such as Kringle Candle Company in Bernardston, Mass., to CVS headquarters in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, gaining invaluable, behind-the-curtain access to businesses operations. After earning his associate degree in business administration from HCC, he transferred to UMass Amherst's Isenberg School of Management, where he graduated with his bachelor’s degree.
Today, Dylan runs Cloud 9 Marketing Group in East Longmeadow, a digital and social media agency he founded in 2014. He serves as board president of the East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce, sits on the board of Living Local 413, and has established scholarships at both his high school, East Longmeadow, and HCC. Last year, he leveraged his company's 10th anniversary to host a charity casino night that raised $10,000 for Jessy's Fight, a cancer-related nonprofit. And each year, during the college's annual day of giving, "Together HCC: Drive to Change Lives, Pilon issues a dollar-for-dollar match for all alumni gifts.
Pilon shared his journey through HCC and what he has learned along the way.
What did you learn at HCC that still benefits you today?
I personally feel that the biggest value of any sort of education is the people that you're going to meet there, whether it's forming really good relationships with your professors or peers. Because you never know who that person you're sitting next to is going to be 10 years from now. If you have a good relationship with folks, when you cross paths again, it can be helpful.
What is your most vivid HCC memory?
My grandfather, Philip Pilon, had passed away, and the next day I showed up to campus very early. I sat in my car and wrote his eulogy. After I finished, I sat there for a moment, and then I took a deep breath, and I went inside. That day we went on one of those Topics in Business class trips. When Professors Majka and [Anne] Potter found out that my grandfather had passed the night before, and that I was there, they said, “You could have taken the day off.” But I wanted to be there. Of course, it was a welcome distraction. But, also, I was looking forward to that trip, and that class meant a lot to me. It was invite-only, so we had to be hand-selected by the professor to be able to be part of that class. I was proud of that. And I was excited about learning from people who have been extremely successful in business.
Who was your best HCC professor and why?
Ellen Majka, 100 percent. That woman changed my life. She's amazing. If I didn't take that first class, I probably would not have snapped out of the negative feeling I had toward community college as a whole. She was instrumental in getting me to realize that this is nothing to be ashamed of. You're not less than somebody else because you went to a community college.
Also, accounting professor Gerry Bates was a wonderful teacher. She was a tough cookie, but she was great. And as somebody who is not a math person, Gerry made those classes interesting and easy to understand.
What advice would you give to a brand-new HCC student?
Shake every hand and take every business card. Get an understanding of everything that the school has to offer, figure out a plan to take advantage of as many of those things as you can, and make sure that you are forming relationships with people in classrooms and on campus.
What surprising job have you had in the past?
Being a car wash attendant was very interesting. I stood outside year-round, and I would make sure that people could get their money into the machine and pay for their car wash, and I would help clean their rims and their tires. That was a very humbling experience, especially when it's 20 degrees outside, and there's freezing water flying everywhere. That taught me very quickly that I did not want to have a career that was outside.
What are you reading these days?
I am reading a book by Gary Vaynerchuk called Day Trading Attention. It’s about how to build a brand in the new social media world. I am a little more than halfway through it. In my opinion, he's the greatest marketer, potentially ever.
What is either the best or worst piece of advice you've received?
Try to identify the problem that you solve for people. That's the key to anything in business: you're either solving a pain point or providing a pleasure point. Approaching business from a perspective of, what are the problems that I solve for people, because that's really what you're selling. You're not selling the thing that you do, you're selling the value of the thing that you do, which is the problem that you're solving.
What do you hate that everyone else loves?
People go crazy for Game of Thrones. I've never seen an episode of it. And if I died today, I would be at peace knowing that I’ve never watched an episode of Game of Thrones.
What person, alive or dead, would you most like to meet?
My mother’s father, John Annino. He passed away shortly before I was born. I had great relationships with my other three grandparents, but I never had the chance to meet him.
Another one would be my cousin, Shelby. She passed away when we were around 15 years old. She had a brain aneurysm in her sleep. And almost 20 years later, I would love to be able to sit down with her for dinner and just talk to her and see what life could have been.
If I had to pick somebody that I wasn't related to, I would love to have dinner with Paul McCartney. What a life that guy has lived. I think he's the greatest composer of music in history. He's so talented. He plays every instrument, sings. I would love to sit down and have dinner with Sir Paul. He's 80-something, and he's still out there with pyrotechnics blowing up behind him.
