Teddy Giard
I am an AACPS: Alum, Severna Park High School, Class of 2016
My name’s Teddy Giard and I’m a graduate from SPHS back in 2016. At SP I played lacrosse, unified tennis, and basketball. As a student I completed Severna Parks Business Innovation & Leadership curriculum where I grew a strong passion for entrepreneurship and digital marketing.
Fast forward two years and I’m a sophomore at Clemson University, my dream school since 1st grade (shameless plug to the AVID program). As a sophomore I was falling behind iny prerequisite courses, not because I was slacking off but because I was painfully uninterested in business management which was my current degree. I quickly recalled back to years at SPHS where marketing courses and entrepreneurship courses were my favorite classes and unhesitatingly switched my major to marketing.
At that moment I knew if I was switching my major I had to make something of it. Ironically a 2012 Broadneck graduate, Austin Maxwell, took me under his wing and had me running digital marketing and branding for a Clemson startup, Kanga.
Fast forward to finals week of my sophomore year… All three members of the company in in Atlanta on a Sunday morning trying out for Shark Tank. Did I mention we all had finals the next day???
We ended up making our way through tryouts and onto the actual show. Our air date was Sunday April 7th @10:00 PM EST.
Looking back on my high school experiences I owe a lot to my teachers and the curriculum that was in place at my high school. It truly felt like I had been exposed to more real world experience than almost all of my classmates at Clemson.
I would like to give a special thanks to Mrs. Colon, Mrs. Barnstead, Mrs. Bertinatti, Mr. Moore, and Mr. Halmi for constantly pushing us students to be our best and most importantly to do what makes us happy. They have all been absolutely incredible leaders and I feel beyond blessed to have been personally impacted by each one of them.
