Exploring “Edutainment”
May 20, 2022
Globe Trotter
December 21, 2022
Full Circle
An elite college soccer star. A prominent bank manager. Now a detective and an adjunct professor at AIC, Orette Ho Sang '02, MBA '21, has come full circle, and he's only getting started.
By Jeffrey Martin
Photo credit: Leon Nguyen '16
Orette Ho Sang is good at starting over.
Not that he’s made a hobby of starting over from scratch, but he’s had to do it numerous times. Shying away from a challenge isn’t really in his DNA. After a unique opportunity initially brought Orette to AIC in 1998, he has returned to the classroom, but not as a student: Orette is now an adjunct professor teaching Business Law in the very classrooms where he learned. His journey of coming to the College, and eventually returning, is a surprising one. From leaving Jamaica to come to America, to holding a prominent position in a bank, to becoming a detective for the biggest city in Western Massachusetts, Orette’s tale is one that’s sure to inspire others to take chances. I asked the AIC alum how he keeps up with the constant change. He said, “Keep pushing. If there’s an opportunity, why not take advantage of it?”Opportunities are something that Orette would never allow to slip through his hands. He was born and raised in Jamaica. Growing up, Orette wanted to play professional soccer in England. He explains that Jamaica is still considered a British colony, so as a kid, Orette watched the English Premier League. After graduating high school at sixteen years old, Orette had a shot to play in Europe, but it wasn’t in England as he had hoped—it was Germany. That had him thinking, “Oh my god, Germany at sixteen or seventeen? I don’t know the language, it’s a very different country, I don’t know anyone.” Orette made the rare decision to pass on the opportunity. Instead, he moved with his family to New Jersey in hopes of playing soccer at the college level.
Orette’s high school transcripts proved to be a barrier preventing him from going straight into college. In Jamaica, high school students take exams (otherwise known as subjects) focused on whatever field they want to work in. For Orette, that was the world of finance, specifically accounting. “I love numbers. Math was my thing,” he explains as he dives into what made these subjects so difficult: these exams are designed by Cambridge and Oxford University. Despite passing a handful of these subjects, Orette was told that his transcripts from Jamaica would not be accepted here in the US. He would need to either obtain his GED or spend some time in high school and pass the necessary exams. Orette opted for the latter, ready for his first challenge.
Orette playing soccer for AIC
Orette is good at starting over—even when he has to go through an additional year-and-a-half or so of high school stateside to attend college.
As a student-athlete, Orette relied on soccer to kick his education into high gear. Mercer Community College, a division one school in New Jersey, was happy to welcome Orette onto the team. Two years later, Orette tried to figure out what school to go to next, but cost proved to be the strongest determining factor. UConn, University of Maryland, Howard University, and others came knocking, but he couldn’t afford the hefty price tag. A fellow international student at the junior college mentioned AIC to Orette as a possibility in the summer of 1998.“One of my teammates that used to play for Mercer . . . had connections with schools in this area,” Orette explains, “because he wanted to be close to home. One of his schools of choice was American International College, so he was in touch with their coach.” It wasn’t long afterwards that Orette received a call to check out AIC himself. With a bag carrying just his cleats, shin pads, and some shorts, he took the train from New Jersey to Union Station in Springfield and joined the Yellow Jackets for practice for a couple of days. One coach had a tremendous impact on Orette’s future: “Coach Fred Balbino called me and said, ‘I can give you a scholarship and you don’t have to worry about your tuition.’” Coach Balbino also helped him with the admissions office. It didn’t take long before Orette officially enrolled at the College.
Support is just one of many words that come to mind for Orette when it comes to AIC. Orette recalled, “The teammates kind of helped me along because there are a lot of international kids here. I met people from the Caribbean, people from Europe,” which reminds Orette of back home in Jamaica. It even extends to Jamaican currency, and he goes on to explain that “the motto is Out of Many, One People. Just like me! My ancestors on my dad’s side is Korean. My mom’s side came from India.” The team was more than just a collection of people with diverse backgrounds— they became friends. “In the middle of August, they [my teammates] laughed at me because I was cold. It was kind of cool at the end [of the month] and I asked for sweats,” Orette said, but he learned that sweats weren’t handed out until October. At least he could count on his team for a laugh here and there while he was shivering in the summer heat. Orette went on to graduate from the College in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing —which brought another challenge to his doorstep.
Orette's senior photo for AIC
Orette is good at starting over—something that he learned after earning his bachelor’s degree.
He came to the US on a student visa. Graduating meant that he successfully completed his academic program, but now he had to figure out how to stay in the US. While he was in school, Orette’s family hired lawyers to write a letter to the US Citizenship and Immigration Office to ask if he could stay in the country while his paperwork was pending. Because he was still involved with the College as a coach for the women’s soccer team, the immigration office allowed Orette to stay.Another concern was employment. Orette was already working in retail after graduation. Everything changed on August 8, 2005, when the government permitted Orette to work in the US. It’s a date that holds a lot of significance for him, as it cleared a path to pursue a new management opportunity with EbLens in Bloomfield, Connecticut, where he trained new managers. After a while, Orette felt tired. In 2010, he needed a change: “This is too much, I’m asking people their shoe size, and I have this education—I need to try to go in the corporate world a little bit more.’” Little did Orette know that was easier said than done.
Orette is good at starting over—even an unexpected paradox can’t stop him.
Orette had the knowledge and expertise to pass exams that were crafted by some of the most prestigious universities on the planet, and yet, he is told that he is overqualified to be a teller for TD Bank. At the time, Orette wasn’t a citizen, so getting a higher-level role was out of the question. He kept inquiring about the teller position anyway, and ultimately, his persistence paid off in 2010 when he got the job. A chance encounter with some new business owners gave Orette a chance to put his skills to the test. “I remember I was working one Sunday and some guys from Golden Corral came in and were like, ‘We’re going to open a new business . . . we’re just here to see a manager,’” but Orette explains that managers aren’t scheduled to work on Sundays. Fortunately for them, that wasn’t an issue: he passed accounting/finance subjects developed by Cambridge and the University of Oxford at just sixteen years old. This was a moment that Orette had been waiting for his entire life.While he couldn’t officially open the new account, he took down the customers’ necessary information to open a business account for them the next day. Orette recalled sharing the information with his manager: “He just looked at me kind of strange and said, ‘You’re a teller, you just started, how do you know about this?’” Orette directly attributes what he learned from AIC and in Jamaica to this situation. His temperament is one that shows your past experiences can continually benefit you when you least expect it. While the move greatly impressed his managers, the next step in his career wouldn’t happen until a year later. Orette became a citizen, which really opened doors for him. After spending a few months searching for managerial openings, he stumbled upon an opportunity to be a supervisor at TD Bank’s contact center in Springfield. He worked there for about a year until the contact center moved to South Carolina—a leap that Orette wasn’t ready to take. “I can’t make that jump. I just started getting into my own, so I stayed here,” and it didn’t take long for him to find his footing. TD Bank offered him a position as an assistant branch manager in Springfield on State Street—right across the road from AIC. “I’m always coming back,” Orette says as he’s overcome with laughter, realizing there’s a pattern that naturally developed over the years. It didn’t take long for Orette to find another window of opportunity elsewhere for his biggest career change yet.
The opportunity was given to me, so why not give someone else that same opportunity?
Orette is good at starting over—even when it is entirely from scratch.
During his time as a teller, the police detail inside the bank would often tell him to take the police exam. He had never thought of joining the police force, though his family has a military background. Ultimately, becoming a citizen cleared the way for him to make a career change. Once that was no longer a concern, he said “nothing can stop me, I’m thinking, ‘I’m big and I’m bold!’” He had been applying to bigger financial institutions in hopes of doing something more in line with his career aspirations but he hadn’t heard back from them, so what was there to lose? Orette took the exam and passed it on his first attempt. Then he put his master’s degree on hold to enroll in the police academy when he was thirty-eight years old on May 4, 2015. Eventually, he made his way into a cruiser, patrolling the streets of Springfield in uniform for about a year-and-a-half. Before long, the Springfield Police Department asked if he wanted to work in the detective bureau. Initially, Orette was doing a little bit of everything in the bureau—now, he’s part of the Special Victims Unit.Leave it to Orette—the soccer player, the international student, the retail manager, the bank teller, the assistant branch manager, and now the Springfield Police detective— to figure out a way to bring previous experiences into his new line of work. Communication skills and people skills were crucial for his previous jobs—but that doesn’t mean they can’t be relevant in new ways. Orette knew that he could bring that skillset, as well as his education from AIC, with him into the line of duty: “All of your culture comes in one ball, and I was successful when I took that into law enforcement.” Making the jump from police officer on the beat to a detective in the Special Victims Unit would feel great for any member of the department. Orette is not as easily satisfied. When his lieutenant made the offer, Orette said, “It’s going to be a new challenge, lieutenant, but I’ll do the best I can.” His current duties as a detective are different compared to when he was a patrolman, but the compassion remains the same. As an officer in uniform, he’d make it a point to check in on families whose calls he responded to. As a detective, “now those people are coming into my office,” he explains. That affords Orette more time to effectively address the needs and concerns of those families: “Now I’m in this position to call resources in for [them],” whether people need housing assistance, counseling, or something else entirely.
Photo credit: Leon Nguyen '16
Orette is good at starting over—even when that means coming full circle.
He was two classes shy of completing his master’s degree when he joined the Springfield Police Department. Not one to leave any loose ends, Orette called the College to figure out what he’d have to do in order to get his degree. The call took an unexpected turn: Orette was offered an adjunct teaching position. Teaching was never on Orette’s mind: “My mom was a teacher for twenty years, I could never do what she does”—but he has proven himself wrong. For Orette, he feels compelled to take on this completely new and foreign challenge because he wants to be part of the support system that was there for him: “The opportunity was given to me, so why not give someone else that same opportunity?” Orette knows he has a unique life story peppered with singular experiences. So far, he’s taught two classes—Fraud Examination in the fall of 2021 and Business Law for the Spring 2022 semester— and he’s made sure to combine the theoretical with the practical. “I noticed that you can connect with the new generation by sharing experiences with them,” which are real examples that Orette faced since joining the Springfield Police Department.Clearly, it’s working. Fraud Examination had six students. Business Law has eighteen students—a three-fold increase after teaching just one course. He claims that his students would take a part two of either of his courses if they could. An instructor’s success can’t be limited to what happens in the classroom— sometimes what happens outside of it is more important. Orette is proud to make himself available whenever the students need help. He told me of a student of his who asked for help with a very specific situation: the student-athlete was trying to figure out a way to save money while earning his master’s degree. Orette told his student exactly what he did all those years ago, which was to talk to his coach about being an assistant. For Orette, “everything seems like I have to give this knowledge back to kids that needs it.” At the moment, he wants to keep teaching while being a detective. Orette doesn’t know what his next challenge is. I ask him what he’d do if another opportunity presented itself to him. Orette only says one thing: “I’ll do the best that I can.”
Photo credit: Leon Nguyen '16
