Graduation Spotlight: John “Jack” Maybin DeFraites, III (BSM ’24)

Name: John “Jack” Maybin DeFraites, III

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: Proudly an unconventional business student; Tulane’s adage “Of New Orleans, For the World” defines me.

Fun fact: Before Hurricane Ida hit, in Summer of 2021 I worked as deckhand on a family-owned shrimping boat in Barataria Pass off Grand Isle, Louisiana.

Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana / Houma, Louisiana (immediately following
Katrina)

Major: BSC in Management; BA in Political Science (International Relations) and German Studies (Triple Major)

Favorite Business Course: ENRG-4150-01: Electric Vehicles and the Supply Chain

Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles During College:

• Aftercare teacher at The Willow School New Orleans
• Night School German Teacher at the Goethe-Institute E.V. Namibia 
• German Residential Language Village of Concordia College Camp Counselor, Teacher, Lifeguard and Archery coach
• Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity, Corporate Sponsorship Chair and Fundraising Committee Member
• Tulane University German Club, Club President ’23-’24, Club Member 2021 – Present
• Tulane University Undergraduate Student Government (USG)
• Selected Recipient of the German Department’s John T. Krumpelmann Award set for May 2024
• Completed two, semester-long abroad programs junior year (Namibia and Austria); Abroad GPA: 4.0/4.0
• Selected for fully-funded 10-day Hillel Tulane Israel Leadership Trip including Palestine (Summer 2022)
• Participated in Altman Program all-expense paid, four-week trip to Mérida, Mexico worth 6 college credits (Summer 2021)
• Selected for Mandel-Palagye Program for Middle East Peace (Summer 2021), held virtually at Tulane, sponsored by Hebrew University; Program GPA: 3.5/4.0
• Dean’s List: Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2024

Internships:

• New Orleans Parish District Attorney Office Section K Assistant DA Intern
• Regional English Language Office in Peshawar, Pakistan New Orleans, LA
  Consulate Volunteer
• U.S. Department of Commerce Census Bureau Field Enumerator 
• A. B. Freeman School Technology Student Worker (August 2023 — Pres.)
• Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar, Hostess and Barback (Dec. 2022 — Feb. 2023)
• Canseco’s Carrollton Market, Assistant Stocker/Cashier (June 2020 — Oct. 2020)

Post-Graduation Plans: I do not have a standard job offer lined up. Instead, I have achieved a stop gap year through the
benefit of two international, academic grants: U.S. Dept. State-funded Critical Language Scholarship for the Urdu Language in Lucknow,
India (June — August 2024) and U.S. Dept. State-funded Fulbright Germany English Teacher’s Assistant (ETA) Award in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein (September 2024 — June 2025). 

I intern as a market analyst for the Lithium company of the aforementioned Ashish Patki, which is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. I intend to take the Foreign Service Officer (FSO) exam with a focus of applying to the specialization cone of consular services. 

Favorite business professor:

As a teacher myself, I personally value all of the staffed professors I have had at the business school, yet my most notable and favored teacher was quite the exception. In this stroke of irony, my favorite instructor has been Ashish Patki, who refuses the title of “Professor.” Ashish is the Market Intelligence Director at Arcadium Lithium and an alum from Tulane who answered the call to give back by leading a rapid, January-only intersession class. The reason he is my favorite instructor is because of (1) the vast industry foresight I gained on the electric vehicles component in the global energy transition and (2) the professional bridges he has crafted for me. Additionally, it was through his class’s required research I became versatile in the A.B. Freeman’s complementary Bloomberg Terminal software. While finance is often not my strong suit, Ashish’s class structure of group projects allowed me to fluidly segment my role as the policy specialist when analyzing special EV companies, all while sustaining complementary relationships with my finance-gifted (and often energy industry insider) peers. To conclude, he elevated how I view the world’s trade patterns, and the projections on green supply chain lines on what to expect in the years to come.

What is the biggest lesson you gained from studying business?

Amid well-rounded classes in accounting, negotiations, and organizational behavior, I have learned that de-growth is possible in the sphere of business to address the climate crisis. While likely considered an unorthodox lesson, I came to this conclusion through research during my Strategic Management course with Jeffrey Verhaal, another one of my top professor mentors.

Rather than plugging in information for a slideshow, I had to research and argue how the company Patagonia used a degrowth mindset through Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impact investing and supply chain re-allocation. Critical to recognize is degrowth should not be confused with an anti-growth and rather is not antithetical to growth as Patagonia proves via sustainable practices. Naturally, it may not work in all industries or circumstances, yet it is nevertheless obtainable to alter consumer practices to address the necessity of emerging sustainability practice in the Global North.

As a future manager—whether private or sector—aided by my management degree, I stand by the optimistic yet data-backed theories which point to degrowth as a legitimate solution within contemporary capitalism.

What advice would you give to a student looking to major in a business-related field? 

Tulane’s business school goes beyond just number crunching. Beyond these bedrock fundamentals, lies opportunities to develop one’s communication and cross-cultural skills. On the other hand, with a class such as the excel-exclusive Business Analytics I was pushed out of my comfort zone, yet I now recognize this was beneficial. All in all, I would strongly recommend any student second-guessing themselves or feeling imposter syndrome about their mathematical skills to take the risk and delve into the business path.

What has surprised you most about majoring in business? 

I am surprised how globalized the business curriculum is. For example, Hofstede’s six cultural dimension thematics were a theme both in my organizational behavior course in New Orleans as well as my “Sustainable Development Across Societies” course in Vienna, Austria. The course in Vienna was taught by Christof Miska, a research protégé of Geert Hofstede who’s additional, layered metrics have provided me with the tools to objectively describe
geographically varied world cultures—and how they interact in the business world—without resorting to self bias. These business school perspectives are diverse in their versatility, from private sector communication to the sphere of diplomacy.

Looking back over your experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently in business school and why?

Looking back, I would have tried to take the time to be a teacher’s assistant. Given my current and near future teaching endeavors, this would have fused two of my current activities and provided me with further leadership.

Which academic, extracurricular or personal achievement are you most proud of?

The academic achievement I am most proud of is the successful petition and completion of my Independent Study Option which took me to Windhoek, Namibia in Fall 2022. The program was approved through the Office of Study Abroad, is run by Augsburg University in Minnesota, and is centered on the theme of “Decolonizing the Mind.” The vetting process on Tulane’s end (where the affiliated abroad program counted fully under my Tulane tuition) felt like an entire semester-long course workload with the writing/applications it required, but it was all worth it in the end. Although the program was liberal arts and social studies oriented, my background in international business gave me the skills to navigate the spaces such as attending a B2Gold private launch event and landing a one-on-one interview with 2024 Presidential Candidate Job Amupanda.

Which classmate do you most admire?

Out of my business school classmates, the person I most admire is Raleigh Kreis. I see her as an opposite, albeit even more formidable counterpart in the Altman Program than myself. This is above all because she leaned into her business school degree more than I did. While on my Altman Program excursion in Yucatán, Mexico during the sole Finance class I fully succeeded in, Raleigh was an invaluable peer resource for financial concepts I still find challenging to this day. Despite our academic differences, I see a similar drive in Raleigh to my own, especially since just like me she leveraged her time and financial resources available to her by Tulane to experience multiple continents, in her case from Germany to Brazil/Chile. Most importantly, I look up to her because after all of travels, she was able to land the achievement of an excellent salaried position in Houston directly for post-grad.

Who would you most want to thank for your success?

Rachel “Frau” Becker—my high school German teacher for three years—is whom I have most to thank for completely altering my life trajectory for the better. Beyond organizing German student exchanges which allowed me to host Germans my age to unlock me to take language learning seriously, she was the one to slide the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange pamphlet ad on my desk and urged me to apply. Within a mere nine months, I was able to live in both Bonn and Berlin, and even conducted a three month vocational program at an industrial-scale brewery. I did not know at the time, but that period of my life filled with freedom and solo travel exploration was miraculously able to transpire just before the COVID-19 reverted the world to isolation for 2+ years. Frau Becker’s impact on me was a clear distinction for what allowed me to achieve the scholarships to attend Tulane at an affordable, zero-loan-required rate. Furthermore, her role without doubt played a part in my recent Fulbright award selection, and above all she helped me establish the building blocks to build the ladder where I am now. So for all of this, I say to her, danke!

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list? 

• Short term: within 5 years, receive a private or public sector job offer in Southern Africa (South Africa and/or Namibia). I enjoyed my time there too much to disregard my ambitions of living there again.
• Longterm: in 30 years plus time, be nominated for an ambassadorship by the U.S. State Department.