Pioneering Passion
Groundbreaking alumna helps companies identify and develop their own talent.
Clare
(De Myer) Marsch is a respected pioneer in the field of corporate
“e-learning,” a fancy term for computer-based instructional programs
that help people learn to do their jobs better.
What fewer
people know is that Marsch has a secret history as a different kind of
pioneer. While double-majoring in communications and political science
at Loyola Marymount University from 1973 to 1977, Marsch played on the
men’s soccer team. She lettered each year and was even recruited by a
pro team in Tampa Bay. She wasn’t trying to prove a point: LMU simply
didn’t offer women’s soccer then. Yet having grown up overseas, she was
a pretty darn good player.
“I was interviewed by the Associated
Press, and said, ‘I’m not a women’s libber. I just believe that women
should be given the right to do anything they can do.’ When that got
printed, I remember reading it and thinking, ‘That means I am a women’s
libber!’” she recalls.
The experience reaped benefits Marsch
couldn’t have foreseen. She met her husband of 30 years, Patrick Marsch
[BusAdm ’76], through soccer. “I was a wing, and he was a fullback, so
when we scrimmaged, we would always be colliding,” she says.
Being the only woman on a team of guys was probably good preparation
for life in the corporate world. But Marsch also credits the
university’s emphasis on writing. At one of her first jobs, Marsch
wrote marketing materials for a San Diego tech firm. The company was
developing an early prototype for e-learning: an interactive-video
system to help pharmaceutical reps brush up on medical knowledge.
“One day they said, ‘Well, gosh, now we need someone to write the
[instructional text] for this,’ and I just raised my hand and said, ‘I
can do that! I can write!’” she remembers. “LMU really helped develop
those skills. The film and television courses gave me the ability to
capture thoughts and express them convincingly, to really move people
to action. I think that’s been the essence of my success,” she says.
Marsch has been at it ever since and is now a senior principal at
Convergys, a global business services company that supports dozens of
Fortune 500 companies. “Basically we partner with clients to help them
identify how they develop talent within an organization, how they
prepare their workers to perform often very complex tasks and work
processes.”
Helping people work and live better fulfills a
sense of service she inherited from the Jesuits, Marsch says. “The
tradition they teach is not to blindly accept things, but to question
and to get underneath why things are the way they are. Then when you
come to realize your beliefs, you are passionate about why you believe
something. I try to build that into the work that I do — to give people
the reasons to move in a new direction,” she says.
About three
years ago, Clare’s sister, Laura Williamson ’74, an LMU trustee,
encouraged Clare to get involved with LMU. Clare now serves on the
Dean’s Council for the College of Communication and Fine Arts. “I feel
strongly that so much of the root of my personal life and career came
from LMU,” she says, “and I want to give back in any way that I can and
spread the good news about LMU.” —Kate Sullivan
Clare (DeMyer)Marsch
[CFA, LibArts ’77]
Little known facts
Clare won a world championship in Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial art, in 1992.
LMU Mentor
Milt Gelman, professor of communication arts and writer (“Quincy,” “Route 66,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and others)