Alumni Profile: Ian Rubin

Degree: B.P.S. '14
Current Employer: New York Yankees, Retention Sales Specialist

Beyond the Ballpark

Coming to NYIT might have seemed like an obvious choice for Ian Rubin (B.P.S. ’14). After all, he’s the great nephew of Alexander Schure, Ph.D., founder of NYIT and the university’s first president. But that’s not why Rubin decided to attend the university. It was NYIT itself. “I wanted to be able to get a degree where I could get out of the classroom and study hospitality management,” says Rubin, who works as a retention sales specialist for the New York Yankees. “It just so happened that I conveniently went to the school my family started.”

Rubin credits NYIT with helping him find his career path by encouraging him to network in the sales and hospitality field and by giving him and his classmates a complete education inside and outside of the classroom. During his junior year, he took a semester off to work in the Disney College Program. Later, he interned with the New York Islanders, which lead him to his first job with the Yankees in the junior sales program in 2015. He now works primarily with long, tenured season accounts and manages a multimillion-dollar book of current business while also bringing in new revenue.

“Being in sales where I am now boosts your confidence and really builds your character, especially with this New York market,” he says.

Rubin also helped organize NYIT day at Yankee Stadium, which invited the NYIT community to see the Yankees take on the Toronto Blue Jays on September 15. “I wanted to make sure there was an affordable opportunity for anybody to go to a game—no matter what they’re doing,” he says. A portion of the sales from the event will go to the BEE-LIEVE Hospitality Scholarship Program.

Rubin stresses that he got no special treatment for being related to an NYIT founder, nor did he want any. “I don’t want people to feel like they need to have a connection,” he said. “The great experience I had at NYIT would happen to anybody.”