Vanguard University

This is Trish Fisher. Before becoming a Professor, she worked in marketing and brand management for corporate conglomerates such as Procter and Gamble, which oversees 65 brands including, Crest, Gillette, Pampers, and Tide. She also taught as an adjunct instructor at Davenport University, Baker College and the University of Massachusetts. Today she is married and has two adult children who live on the east coast. 

Trish was born in Massachusetts into an Irish Catholic family. She remembers growing up seeing the fall foliage and immersing herself in New England history. Her favorite football team is still the New England Patriots despite her relocation to California for her husband’s work.

"My parents split when I was 10, so I grew up mostly with my mom and four siblings. We loved living on the east coast near Boston. We got to experience all four seasons in community-oriented and festive small towns. A summer highlight always was the strawberry festivals where the community gathered and ate everything strawberry. They would have strawberry pies, jams and anything you could think of. It was a place, where you walked outside and your neighbors would stop and talk to you kind of thing." 

After graduating from high school, Trish went on to earn a bachelors and masters in mathematics from the University of Massachusetts. She looks back remembering loving math because of her pragmatic personality and how she could find joy in solving challenging problems. Soon after, she would get another master's degree in business administration from the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management where she specialized in strategy and marketing. 

"I feel like it was an evolutionary transition going from math to marketing. Both require an analytical mindset, but marketing is different because it embraces a creative aspect that allows everything to be more fun. I seem to thrive as a creative quant; I like having a balance of both in my life and work."  

Trish also enjoys starting new projects and being able to be a catalyst for change. She remembers taking a science class learning about what a catalyst does in chemistry and being inspired by how it affects change in its surroundings. Recently, she has worked on creating collaborative efforts between the communication and business departments. Now the Division of Business and Communication, it represents a quarter of the undergraduate demographic. She is also developing a master's degree curriculum in strategy and innovation that she hopes to spearhead for graduate students. She is enjoying teaching her new course: Design Thinking & Innovation which focuses on “human-centered creative problem solving” addressing “wicked” or highly ambiguous problems.

Today, Trish is the Associate Dean for the Business and Communication Departments and Chair of Professional Studies Business and has been at Vanguard for the past 17 years. She is excited about her work with faculty to launch an online degree in management. When she has time off, she enjoys family, swimming and biking. She rides 45 miles per week on Irvine trails.  

Vanguard is very thankful for Trish's corporate experience and expertise that she brings to the classroom and her ambition to create new programs to help better serve future students in their education.