Padua Franciscan High School extends a thank you to its many friends and alumni who spent the morning with our students during Sophomore Career Conference Day 2026.
Bill Bishilany ‘03 delivered a keynote speech to kick off the event on Wednesday, April 22, 2026.
In his address, Bishilany outlined his own journey from graduating from Padua to attending a satellite branch of The Ohio State University before eventually making his way to the main campus in Columbus. After having his job eliminated because of recession-related cutbacks in 2008 and pursuing other opportunities, Bishilany became the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mileage Design, a marketing company at the forefront of using Artificial Intelligence.
“I saw the value of what the digital marketing machine could deliver to a brand and decided to go do it for others,” Bishilany said. “I share all this with you not to just establish my background, but to tell all of you that it’s okay to try different things.
“I think when I sat where you are sitting, I felt like I had to have it all figured out. I had to know the exact path I would have walked down, and I was going to get there. For me at least, it did not go that way, and I’m glad it didn’t.”
Bishilany outlined the four tiers of where AI is most commonly used today, including writing (drafts/emails/editing), conversational research/search, Claude agent teams and infrastructure that learns and scales information.
“Why am I really standing here today?” Bishilany asked. “That was a question I had to answer in my own mind. AI is rewriting, or said another way, rewiring everything inside my business, inside of the careers you’re going to pursue. It’s impacting everyone, so I thought if I can share with you the four main tiers of AI here today, I’m going set you up to have a competitive advantage if you choose to take a step forward.”
Bishilany ended his keynote speech with three points he would tell his 15-year-old self:
- Carry a rosary every day- you never know when you’ll need it
- Fearlessly be yourself-the polished version is boring
- Embrace failure-it’s the quickest path to change
Our presenters included:
- Dana Banyasz ’04 (Finance)
- Bill Bishilany ’03 (Marketing/Keynote Speaker)
- Josh Chapin (Athletic Training)
- Devon (Bobulsky) Climer ’08 (Entrepreneurship)
- Rachel (Teron) DeGirolamo ’02 (Journalism)
- Fr. Stephen DeWitt (Vocations)
- Justin Dzik ’01 (Engineering)
- Tina Dzik ’01 (Accounting)
- Ron Falconi ’87 (Politics)
- Michael Glavan ’09 (Acting)
- Christopher Harris (Forensics)
- Carrie Jancar (Mental Health)
- Jim Kulikowski ’23 (Law Enforcement)
- Alyssa Lizzini ’18 (Studio Arts)
- Fr. William McIntyre (Vocations)
- Judge Sherrie Miday (Law)
- Joe Morel (Programming)
- Alexis Moss ’14 (Pharmacy)
- Anthony Scarcella ’99 (Military)
- Ken Smith ’03 (Cybersecurity)
- Tom Sotak ’82 (Civil Engineering)
- Devon Climer '08 (Entrepreneurship)
- Kim Vacanti ’96 (Education)
- Andrea (Elsasser) Von Der Vellen ’00 (Nursing)
- Dave Zupkovich ’10 (Music Production)
