WESTFIELD, Mass. - Westfield State senior student-athletes had a chance to kickstart their professional careers by participating in the Velocity Hub Professional Brand program with alumni on Wednesday, December 6.

The professional brand program is the capstone of a three-part leadership program for student athletes at Westfield State, which first highlights student athlete's emerging leadership skills as underclassmen, then develops their leadership skills as upperclassmen and captains.

Alumni Jim Parker '92, Chris Walker '13, Karen Gomez '96, and Marlee Berg '09 helped mentor the Owls athletes in a program led by Amanda Rogers from Velocity Hub.

"This program is a kickstarter for our seniors as they create their path for life after graduation," said Berg, who serves as assistant to the director of athletics at Westfield State and helped organize the session. "It helps student-athletes to create their own professional brand as they learn no network with our successful alumni and then create an action plan for themselves."

Westfield State athletic director Dick Lenfest welcomed students to the session, and associate athletic director Nancy Bals coordinates the leadership training series along with partner Velocity Hub, which engineers results-oriented training programs, high-value consulting, and targeted executive coaching to many of the world's leading companies, small & medium businesses, and non-profits and runs the "Victory Academy" programs targeted for college athletes.

Westfield State athletics invites alumni who have a variety of professional experiences, including business, education, communications and law enforcement, which aligns with some of the most popular majors at Westfield State.

"This is a terrific program which really builds off of the inherent leadership and professional skills learned in athletics," said Bals. "Student-athletes learn the merits of teamwork, hard work, resiliency and leadership through their participation on the field of play, and the Victory Academy programs help to give our students a leg up as they move through four years of education and competition at Westfield State, and as they graduate and move into the professional world."