Abu Dhabi, now that’s a long way from home – more than 7,000 miles, in fact. But Brie Tayek ’04 knows her way around the city well enough to educate travelers from the Cleveland Clinic about negotiating the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The Cleveland Clinic will help manage a 360-bed hospital and clinic that opens there next year. Tayek is a project analyst in the Cleveland Clinic’s International Operations Department and has traveled to Abu Dhabi five times, spending five months there.

 

“I also serve as our department’s resource for educating first-time travelers to Abu Dhabi,” Tayek says. She provides pre-deployment briefings for individuals and departments to better understand the Clinic’s activities there and to show what to expect. Her department provides human resource support to employees living abroad, responds to requests, reports on international ventures and assists with day-to-day operations and activities for overseas facilities. She believes the opportunity for autonomy, participation in Gilmour’s mission trips and a desire to learn about other countries and cultures have been assets in her career.

 

Tayek was previously an intern in the Clinic’s marketing department, an assistant at a law firm, a sports camp intern in college and a counselor at Gilmour’s Day Camp. She received the clinic’s Caregiver Celebration Honor Award four times and serves as a community liaison, organizing trips to the Cleveland Foodbank and participating in Ronald McDonald House campaigns.

 

“My interactions with other students and teachers at Gilmour sparked my interest, influencing my decision to take part in the International Affairs Scholars Program at The Ohio State University,” she says. Tayek added that participation in mission trips during her junior and senior years at GA and a Habitat for Humanity mission trip in college increased her desire to volunteer. She played softball in high school and college, coaches young girls in the sport and is on a Mayfield Village softball league with Gilmour alumni and their parents.

 

The project analyst began working with the Cleveland Clinic two-and-a-half years ago after earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Ohio State in business administration with a specialization in marketing and logistics management. In college, she participated in study abroad programs in Hong Kong, mainland China and Brazil. In the last six months alone, Tayek has traveled to three continents, six countries and numerous states.

 

The use of the Socratic method at Gilmour taught Tayek how to view situations from all sides, “requiring me to figure out how to justify my beliefs or work,” she says. “Today, I feel as though there are not too many obstacles or situations I face that I can’t eventually figure out or find an answer to.”