Decoding Success: Allonna Beasley

by Valerie Figueroa

Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “the noblest search is the search for excellence.” For Allonna Beasley, these words ring true. A senior at Texas State University's McCoy College of Business, Beasley is pursuing a BBA in marketing while also serving in the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a Cyber Operations Specialist, holding a Top Secret SCI/TI clearance.

Originally from Killeen, Texas, Beasley was raised in a vibrant military community near Fort Hood. That environment helped shape her outlook early on, expanding her worldview and developing an appreciation for adaptability.

"I feel that was a really important part of my growing up and being able to experience all these different types of people from all over," she says. “You also have your friends that'll stay for maybe a year or two, and then they leave.”

Her path to marketing wasn't something she planned. She initially pursued an interest in entrepreneurship in high school until she had the opportunity to take a marketing class. After joining a Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) team — a national, non-profit student organization that prepares high school and college students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management — she discovered her passion for marketing. Through a project where she helped raise money for a local animal shelter, she realized her talents were better suited for supporting entrepreneurs through marketing.

"I love to see the passion behind entrepreneurship," Beasley says. "I would love the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs because they [often] don't have the marketing support."

That desire led her to Texas State, where she has made the most of her time at McCoy College. Beasley has consistently earned Dean's List recognition and has participated in two service-learning projects that provided her hands-on experience while helping non-profit organizations expand their impact, often with limited budgets. In one class, she helped develop a marketing proposal for a local foundation; in another, she and her team raised money for a youth organization.

"I think McCoy and Texas State in general are very unique, the professors and just the resources that you have," she says. “Being able to go out and do all of these things that I'm studying and the impact that it can have, I think that was a very unique experience for me.”

Beasley says she took the summer semester off between her freshman and sophomore year to enlist in the military. She expected to return to school in the fall, but things didn’t go according to plan, and she ended up having to take the fall semester off. Although it felt like a setback at first, she says it turned out to be a “blessing in disguise,” because she felt at her age, she would have been unprepared for early graduation.

“I would have graduated in the fall and would have been around 20 [years old] graduating, and I don't know what I would have done,” she says.

While many students juggle academics and part-time work, Beasley manages five classes a semester, monthly military training drills, and the responsibilities that come with her role in cybersecurity.

"It really let me know that I could do anything that I wanted to do," she says. "Going into cybersecurity, I had no experience, I was studying marketing. Coming out of that and having that opportunity and balancing a lot of those things helped me develop a lot of perseverance and, as far as leadership goes, holding other people accountable when you're relying on them and making sure that we can achieve these goals."

Those lessons carry into her business mindset, especially when it comes to teamwork. She smiles as she references the classic military challenge: 50 women making their beds and doing it properly within a specific time frame.

"Overall [the experience] breaks you down and builds you back up," she says. [Everyone] is in the same boat. You're all in the same situation, trying to achieve the same goal. So you have to be able to work together to get everything that you need done. It's really overwhelming."

She continued: "Once you recognize that if everybody does what they're supposed to do and not think about yourself and always think about it as a group, you're going to be successful."

Beasley is also a McCoy College Ambassador — a group of esteemed student leaders serving the college — where she uses her platform to open doors for others. As a first-generation college student and Pell Grant recipient, she knows what it means to walk into a room where people like her are underrepresented. She takes pride in bringing others with her.

"As a black woman, just being able to be in those rooms, that's really important for me," she says. "That's probably what I'm most proud of, just beating all the adversity put in place before me and then showing other people that. Being a McCoy College Ambassador, I get to recommend people, so I'm going to bring people who don't really get to be in those rooms."

As she prepares to graduate in May 2025, Beasley says she is exploring opportunities with companies that invest in her and promote her professional growth and development, traits she learned to appreciate from a high school marketing job she worked.

“I went to a job fair in high school and this person [former boss], he took a chance on me,” she says. “We had sit downs, and he was able to give me a lot of knowledge that helped me go into all these things that I'm doing. After having that experience, that's something that I look for, definitely somebody who's investing in you and wants to know what your goals are and how to help you get there. That's really important to me.”

Her advice to incoming Bobcats? "Don't be scared to put yourself out there and be in those rooms that you feel like you don't belong in," she says. “Take those chances. It doesn't matter why you're there. Take every opportunity that you're presented." ✯