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Goal-setting, training and focus. Daniel Scipione knows what it takes to go the distance.

Those are skills the College of Business 2018 graduate has sharpened during his time on campus—both in and out of the classroom.

When Scipione chose to enroll in graduate school to further his education, he also decided to take up running; he set goals to both earn his diploma and take part in a marathon.

This month Scipione will have done both—he walks at commencement on April 29, just a week after running in the Glass City Marathon in Toledo.

“For me, running and taking challenging coursework are connected. Yes, running is a physical thing, but it is a mental and psychological thing too. They both strengthen concentration and build mental toughness,” said Scipione, whose interest in the sport was fostered by family members who run. “Whether it’s taking a long exam, focusing in and finding connections in data, or pushing yourself to go further and faster on a run, it all takes a lot of work and concentration.”

Scipione, who has secured a full-time data analytics position with Urban Science in Detroit, said he enjoys his analytical way of thinking to solve problems. Originally, he planned to work in the medical field, but then noticed an emerging discipline, data science, where people used existing data to find solutions.

“I’ve always liked science and math. This field uses both to help you analyze numbers to reveal patterns and to help you see a bigger picture. It’s so interesting and I feel ahead of the curve because it’s a relatively new field,” said Scipione, who is in the Master of Science in business analytics program. “There is so much data that has been collected and companies don’t know the full potential of that data yet. I want to help them find ways to help them serve their customers better. This can be done by creating a more streamlined process, or finding and presenting data in an easy-to-understand way for people who make business decisions.”

During his two years in the program, he did an internship for Fiat Chrysler, where he organized financial data and created templates that imported numbers for data visualization. He also took Operations Management Professor Chandra Charu’s Decision Sciences 635: Business Analytics Experience course, where he was selected to work with St. Luke’s Hospital in Ohio to create a visual dashboard to give up-to-date contribution margins for surgical procedures, which the medical facility has implemented.

Also during that time, Scipione trained for and ran several half marathons—including the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon and the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run Half Marathon; he completed the latter with an eight-minute-per-mile pace.

Scipione said his professors, family and friends all have encouraged him. And now, after years of training, he’s pleased with his progress and ready for the next challenge.

“Even as you cross one finish line, you know there is another starting line you want to be at,” he said. “But I’ll take a minute to celebrate these accomplishments. They are both things I’ve wanted to achieve for quite awhile. It’s satisfying to watch life goals come together.”