March 6, 2024

The Ramapo College Presidential Speaker Series hosted its second fireside chat of the academic year. President Cindy Jebb sat down with Stryker President of Joint Replacement Donald E. Payerle in February. Payerle’s messaging applied widely to the audience, but more so had important takeaways for students.

He shared with the audience how his liberal arts background provided the ability to draw on critical thinking and other skill sets to seamlessly move from team to team in his professional career. He also encouraged students to find not only mentors who will provide support, guidance, and be good sounding boards, but also to find sponsors who will provide professional advocacy to help with career advancement.

Payerle also talked about leadership, particularly strengths-based leadership, which focuses on identifying the strengths of not only yourself, but your team, and leveraging those to their fullest potential to develop and sustain engagement for success. Stryker uses CliftonStrengths (f.k.a. Strengths Finder) by Gallup to develop and retain talent by aligning people with their strengths. This is also an approach taken recently by People Operations and Employee Resources at Ramapo College who earlier this year, rolled out a series of workshops for managers to discover and perhaps validate their strengths, in support of the College’s strategic plan.

Ramapo College and Stryker have had a long-standing partnership that is only getting stronger. A recent tour of the Stryker facilities in Mahwah highlighted the internship and job opportunities Roadrunners in interested in data science, environmental science and sustainability, and marketing, to name a few, have with the company. The Ramapo College Foundation is grateful for the work of Anthony Cambria ’92, who sits on the Board of Governors and arranged for Don Payerle to come to campus and share his dynamic and powerful advice with the community.