FC Dallas

by Travis Martin – January 2013

Kris Katseanes, Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service for FC Dallas, has been an invaluable member of the S3 Advisory Board. Because of Kris’ leadership and willingness to mentor the careers of young people entering the profession, Baylor’s S3 program annually places interns and new employees with FC Dallas.

Each fall semester Katseanes visits the Baylor campus to interview S3 students for internships the following summer. For most juniors this is the first real interview with a team. Katseanes helps calm the tension as students walk into the one-on-one interviews. As with other on-campus interviews with board members, students meet with the S3 Program Director, Dr. Darryl Lehnus, to help learn for the next interview.

All the students who meet with Mr. Katseanes quickly learn about his opinion of the value of hard work. His strong work ethic was instilled in him since he was a boy. Growing up on a potato farm, hard work was the only way to go when your day starts at 4:00 am.

One demonstration of this kind of dedication came one afternoon when Katseanes found inefficiencies in the team’s database. Salespeople were wasting time and it was clear the system needed organizing. Since the team did not have a specific person assigned to the database, Katseanes took it upon himself to work from 7:00 pm that night to 7:00 am to clean up the leads in the system. This not only helped them gain more sales, but gained admiration around the office for making everyone’s life easier.

Along with integrity and networking, work ethic represents part of the Baylor S3 W-I-N acronym instilled in students. Katseanes believes we reap what we sow and luck finds people who work hard. For young professionals, the best way to improve your career is to volunteer for anything and everything. This puts you ahead of the person next to you and gets you noticed by the right people.

“But, you have to be careful,” Katseanes says. “I see young professionals always looking to the next step so much that they can’t be content with the current. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, so find a place where you can be happy.”

“He’s fair, creative, solution and result oriented,” said Kelly Weller, Vice President of Marketing, Communications & Strategic Planning with FC Dallas. “Everyone has a chance to succeed with him.  They are given all the tools, resources and time to perform their best to not only hit their individual goals, but to help achieve the overall objectives of the company.  He’s one of a kind in my book!”

Katseanes loves working with the S3 program because of the leadership the program offers to its students. At FC Dallas, Katseanes has developed a leadership development program that helps employees set written goals with measurable results and deadlines. Katseanes enjoys working with the the S3 professors and S3 graduates, because the emphasis is on preparing to enter a career and not just get a job.