During the grueling, 26.2-mile New York City Marathon in November, MBA student Junau Boucard \u201911 (BUS) will have plenty of time to think.<\/p>\n
And when he\u2019s exhausted, depleted, discouraged, and his feet want to quit, his mind will take him back to last March when he visited Vietnam through a School of Business-organized immersion trip.<\/p>\n
While there, he developed a powerful connection with the people of his host country. He\u2019s dedicating his marathon run, and any donations he raises<\/a> because of it, to making a better life for some of that country\u2019s youth. All of his earnings will be donated to Blue Dragon Children\u2019s Foundation<\/a>, which fights poverty, human trafficking, and other social issues.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile in Vietnam, I fell in love with the people, the food, and the culture,\u201d says Boucard, who is earning his degree at UConn Stamford while working full-time at a financial software company, FactSet.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I also witnessed firsthand the poor condition of so many street kids in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, who had no stable housing, food, or access to education.\u201d<\/p>\n When a representative of Blue Dragon, based in Hanoi, talked about the organization\u2019s mission and how they are able to help children in crisis, Boucard was moved.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really inspired me. I thought, \u2018Maybe I could help when I get back to the United States,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to leave an impact on the world, to make it better than it was when I came in. If I can help the life of one person, it will impact them forever.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Trying to Make My Parents Proud\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Boucard was born in Haiti, and moved to the United States as a 7-year-old.<\/p>\n \u201cGrowing up in Haiti, there was a great deal of political instability,\u201d he says. \u201cMy family moved here so that I could receive a great education and have a brighter future. I\u2019m trying to make my parents proud.\u201d<\/p>\n Boucard has worked at FactSet for the past five years and is currently working in product development for the company. He has been in the part-time MBA program in Stamford for two years, taking classes year-round without a break, and expects to graduate in Spring 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope to take my career to the next level at FactSet, or join a leadership rotational program at a Fortune 500 company,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He particularly enjoys classes in management strategy, including learning from mistakes that prominent business leaders have made while trying to build great businesses, as well as leveraging data to solve business problems. He also excels in finance classes, working in diverse teams, and is intrigued by international business.<\/p>\n Upon completing his master\u2019s, Boucard will be a two-time UConn alumnus, having completed his bachelor\u2019s degree in business administration in 2011 at Stamford.<\/p>\n Pushing to the Limit<\/strong><\/p>\n The New York City marathon was a \u2018bucket list\u2019 challenge Boucard had considered for some time. Runners must qualify or enter a lottery to participate. He learned in late January that he had been selected as one of more than 50,000 runners to participate in the marathon on Nov. 4.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve always been inspired by people who run a marathon or a triathlon and push their bodies to the limit,\u201d he says. \u201cRunning a marathon has been on my bucket list for a very long time, but I never followed through or took it seriously until this year.\u201d<\/p>\n He says working full-time and taking MBA classes at night for the past two years increased his motivation. \u201cThe UConn MBA program taught me a lot about time management, setting ambitious goals, and that great things happen when you step out of your comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n The training hasn\u2019t been easy to fit into his busy schedule, and he plans his longer runs for weekends.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been fairly athletic, but I\u2019m not a runner,\u201d Boucard says. And at 200 pounds, he doesn\u2019t have a classic runner\u2019s body. But since he started training, he has lost about 15 pounds. He says that previously, he didn\u2019t think he could run even a half-marathon without stopping.<\/p>\n Blue Dragon Tackles Human Trafficking and More<\/strong><\/p>\n During the 10-day Vietnam trip, Boucard learned about emerging markets finance and supply chain management across the globe. He learned about the government, the currency, and the ties between countries within Southeast Asia. He and other graduate students visited Coca-Cola, Intel, the U.S. Embassy, and the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange. It\u2019s a country that is growing rapidly, thanks to its well-educated populace and low labor costs.<\/p>\n Yet the opportunity for immersion in Vietnamese culture also uncovered some of the problems associated with an emerging economy. It was \u201ca true eye-opener to the group,\u201d says OPIM professor Jan Stallaert. \u201cThe students were extremely moved by the stories of human trafficking as revealed by Blue Dragon.\u201d The whole group is now supporting Bouchard in his marathon attempt.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter meeting with the civil rights attorney from Blue Dragon, I was moved by his passion and drive to help kids in crisis,\u201d Boucard says. \u201cI wanted to do something to help.\u201d<\/p>\n It was UConn program manager Marlys Rizzi who recommended using the marathon as a springboard to help Blue Dragon.<\/p>\n Rizzi says Junau has been an outstanding student, both as an undergraduate and now as an MBA student. He always went above and beyond, and achieved the goals he set, \u201cno matter how hard he needed to work or push himself.\u201d<\/p>\n Crossing the Finish Line<\/strong><\/p>\n Boucard says he\u2019s very determined to finish the race, which ends in Central Park, but knows the last few miles will be the hardest. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a lot of grit, perseverance, and adrenaline to finish those last six miles,\u201d he says, \u201cand a good playlist on Spotify.\u201d<\/p>\n Picturing himself crossing the finish line, he says that once he\u2019s done, he will celebrate by \u201ctaking in the moment with my wife and my newborn baby girl (born on Sept. 19), having a nice dinner, and probably eating ice cream. A lot of ice cream!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stamford MBA student Junau Boucard \u201911 (BUS) was inspired to action by a School of Business field trip to Vietnam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":142916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715,88,156,1862,174],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-142883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact","category-global-affairs","category-profile","category-busn","category-uconn-stamford"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 07:14:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142883"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142954,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142883\/revisions\/142954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/142916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142883"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=142883"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=142883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}