Brandon Ball

Being your own boss, setting your own hours, traveling all over the country. Sounds a lot like a pipe dream to many, but for Brandon Ball, that’s exactly what he wanted, and that’s exactly what he got. A management major with a double minor in marketing and entrepreneurship, coming from nearby Brookville, Ind., Ball is a recent graduate of Indiana State University who has carved a path for himself through his extremely strong work ethic.

During his time on campus, Ball had many different options to get involved on campus, and he took advantage of as many as he could. Ball held down a campus job during his time at ISU as a mentor in the Scott College of Business MEIS Center, and was often asked to meet with dean candidates, Board of Trustees, and business executives coming to campus, as well as speak to classes. Ball had his hands in as many baskets as he could. He was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, where he was the scholarship chair and sound mind/sound body chair, while also a member of the Inter Fraternity Council Executive board.  He served the ISU Greek community as the coordinator of member development, recruitment, scholarship, and new member education.  In addition, Ball was in Student Government Association all four years at ISU, three years as a student senator and a fourth as a representative on the Board of Elections . He was also a member of the Delta Sigma Pi Business Fraternity, and participated in seven out of eight career fairs over his four years, helping out the staff and serving when he could.  And if all that wasn’t enough, he still found time to participate in other community service events like meal packaging in the Scott College of Business and Donaghy Day his freshman and junior year.  Ball loves to be involved. He loves to always be active and doing something. These roles on campus taught him valuable skills in leadership, interpersonal communication, and relationship management that have served him well in his new job, and pushed him to believe in himself.

Ball isn’t just someone who participates though, he also creates. He launched his own company, Perpetual Motion, this May, and works as a certified Google specialist. Working mostly with business owners across the country, Ball optimizes Google pages and allows businesses to get the recognition they are looking for. Ball told me, “The easiest way to describe it is when you search ‘Food near me’ on Google and the business’s page pops up. That’s what I do for businesses in all kinds of industries.” Ball’s favorite part of running his own company is that he can travel. In his own words, “It’s pretty freeing, I can just decide that I want to go to Florida and go. Which is what I actually did. But if I want to I can be in a different state every week seeing everything. I get up, do some work, and then hit the road.”

Ball’s ‘coming to ISU’ story is a little different than most. Ball actually never toured ISU, but was familiar with Indiana State from traveling to Terre Haute and playing sports.  He is also a big supporter of the Special Olympics, so he knew of ISU, but he never actually came on an official tour. When the college offers came in he simply decided that ISU was the college that made the most sense for him, hoped for the best, and accepted. Even though he chose State on what some call a whim, he ended up loving every second of it. State became a second home for him and he now believes firmly that all new students really need to know is that life at ISU is what you make of it, and if you put in the time and you’ll get your mileage out of it.

What’s your BLUE, and what does state mean to you? When asked this question, Ball took a moment to think before answering. Ball said that living two and a half hours away, he missed home often, but he never expected leaving ISU to be so hard. Ball told me that Indiana State University molded him, and helped him to develop in ways he may not have without it. In his own words;

“State taught me how to balance work and play, school and a social life, and everything in between.  It brought me my best friends, taught me some tough lessons, and developed me into the man that I am today.  To me, Indiana State is home.”