Having just completed the sustainable business dual degree (MBA + MS) at the University of Michigan with a focus on Behavior, Education, and Communication, I'm exploring opportunities to help simplify sustainable behavior change.
My experience at digital health and food startups has helped me develop a customer-centric mindset and embrace collaboration. My focus on plant-based eating* has personalized the often vague concept of sustainability and clarified its individual, organizational, and structural components.
With this background, I'm focusing my job search efforts on the solar industry and working toward becoming a NABCEP PV Associate using Sean White's fantastic HeatSpring course.
If you know of relevant opportunities, please let me know at hi@mikewestcott.me or on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect!
Thanks for being here,
💯 abillion
🍍 Wellwith
*🥬 Why plant-based?
Plant-based eating can be incredibly beneficial for improving our health and healthcare system, reducing wasteful spending and environmental harm, and ending unnecessary suffering. Unfortunately, these benefits are often underappreciated while the barriers to plant-based eating are exaggerated. So, abillion and Wellwith make it easy to explore the benefits and eat more plants, like beans.**
**Why beans?
Beans are inexpensive, earth-friendly, delicious, versatile nutritional powerhouses. To me, they epitomize the untapped potential and misunderstood nature of plant-based eating — and that's exciting! Because when we realize that beans are more than the "musical fruit" we eat more of them, and our health, animals, and the planet are better for it. The same is true of plant-based eating in general.
Updated Sep 24, 2021
💼 Experience + Education
☀️ Working toward NABCEP PV Associate certification (Early October 2021)
- Using HeatSpring prep course
📈 Business Development Intern @ abillion (Spring/Summer 2021 internship)
- Grew and engaged our community of brands, restaurants, and nonprofit partners.
- Explored partnerships to reach folks who aren't looking for sustainability apps.
- Researched plant-based foods and sustainable goods markets in the US.
🍍 Founder @ Wellwith (Current side project)
- Wellwith makes it easy to explore healthy resources and turn them into action. Instead of frantic social media feeds, it's a space for thoughtfully curated content from people and brands you care about.
- To keep things simple as we start up, we're zooming in on one practice that benefits several dimensions of well-being: plant-based eating. From there, we'll support content curation for other practices including walking, sleep, meditation, and yoga. This broader focus will appeal to folks who wouldn't otherwise consider plant-based eating and thus accelerate our transition to a vegan world.
- To see a sampling of Wellwith pages, please scroll down to the "Sample Work" section.
- To start exploring content and create your page, visit wellwith.me. Thank you!
🥑 Outreach Associate (SF Bay Area) + Delivery Driver @ Imperfect Foods
- I joined the Imperfect team in January 2020 to create an on-the-ground presence at Bay Area events and help build their corporate partnership offering. Then, COVID hit in early March and both of those efforts were cut off along with the Outreach department itself. I appreciate what the company is doing, look forward to seeing how they evolve, and continue to apply my learnings to create a more sustainable food system!
🥦 HarvestRx Research Intern + Delivery Driver @ Hungry Harvest
- HarvestRx is a door-to-door delivery service that makes nutritious, easy-to-prep fruits and veggies more accessible. Through April 2019, Hungry Harvest had mostly partnered with nonprofit health and community organizations to offer grant-subsidized produce for the program.
- As Research Intern, I quickly realized the limitations of this grant-dependent approach. So, I spent most of the summer exploring alternative funding and growth opportunities. Though the program was ultimately determined to be a low priority, my eyes were opened to the exciting potential of healthy food access for public health, fiscal responsibility, and business development efforts, and I continue to apply those learnings.
🍠 Digital Health Coach + PLC Program Lead @ Omada Health
- Delivered Prevent, Omada’s flagship digital therapeutics program, to 470 participants who lost a combined 3,314 pounds, averaging 7.1 pounds lost and a corresponding 38 percent risk reduction for type-2 diabetes development.
- Selected as Professional Learning Community (PLC) Leader and Program Lead. Led teams of six to eight coaches in creating and running experiments to develop best practices. Served as liaison between PLC leaders and management.
- Represented Omada at in-person events.
🎓 MBA, University of Michigan Ross School of Business (August 2021)
🎓 MS in Behavior, Education, and Communication, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (August 2021)
Note, the degrees above were part of the U-M Erb dual degree program.
🎓 BS in Movement Science, University of Michigan School of Kinesiology
💪 StrengthsFinder Top 5: Learner, Belief, Analytical, Input, Connectedness
🇺🇸 English: Native speaker
🇪🇸 Spanish: Working toward conversational
🔎 Sample Work
Here's a blog article I wrote at the end of my Summer 2021 business development internship at abillion:
Here are a couple of blog articles I wrote after doing business development research for Hungry Harvest's prescription produce program, HarvestRx:
And here's a sampling of Wellwith pages. Once an organization or individual claims their page, they can add curated resources, healthy actions, and shout-outs and easily share their link (wellwith.me/username) with friends or community members. Unlike social media, which tends to distract and keep people online, Wellwith pages are designed to facilitate healthy action offline.
🎯 Focuses
🧭 Exploring opportunities to help simplify sustainable behavior change
📚 Reading: Soundtracks / Bible (especially Romans and Psalms)
🌱 Growing: Managing my attention with Sunsama
😌 Resting: Praying / Running / Meditating
