How volleyball brought Conrad Kaminski (MBA ’25) across continents and to HBS.
By now, most sports fans are familiar with the story of Michael Jordan’s high school basketball career. A reliable trick for motivating any disappointed young athlete, it’s an example of persistence that now rivals tales of George Washington’s honesty in the American canon – cut from his high school basketball team as a sophomore, he dedicated himself to training, grew several inches, and became a star at the University of North Carolina and eventually for the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. However, while Jordan’s accomplishments are unquestionably impressive, narratives like his are more common than you’ve been led to believe.
Though his story isn’t as well known, Conrad Kaminski’s (MBA ’25) volleyball career followed a similar trajectory – the “last guy to make junior varsity” in his sophomore year, he grew seven inches and blossomed into one of the nation’s best players as an upperclassman at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, WI. His talent then took him west to Stanford, where he studied engineering and became a First-Team All-American at one of the nation’s most competitive volleyball programs. From there, he played professionally in Italy before injuries ended his career. He accomplished a tremendous amount on the court, in the classroom, and in the working world, but his path has taken many twists and turns as he’s traveled from Wisconsin to Cambridge, with stops in California and Europe in between.
For someone who achieved as much as he did on the court, Kaminski’s volleyball career began relatively inauspiciously. Uninspired by basketball despite his above-average height, he was introduced to volleyball through family friends as a grade schooler. And while he immediately found community in the sport among “other tall guys who got sick of running,” he wasn’t always a standout. Nevertheless, his love of the game kept him involved, and he began to take things more seriously when a coach encouraged him and a teammate to develop their skills in Milwaukee’s burgeoning beach volleyball scene. Suddenly in the company of adults both experienced in the sport and excited to impart their wisdom on a young athlete in whom they saw potential, Kaminski’s game developed quickly. He was also lucky to encounter club coaches with the West Allis Lightning who were intent on changing the “midwest mindset” that characterized volleyball in Wisconsin at the time; rather than overpowering opponents with raw strength, they sought to implement a California-style system that emphasized teamwork and ball control. They were successful enough in this pursuit that they won an 18U National Championship in 2012, defeating well-established programs from across the country on their way to the title.
Amidst this transformation, Kaminski blossomed into a bona fide star. Despite having no designs on a collegiate career until the spring of his junior year, he quickly found himself being recruited by several of the top volleyball programs in the country. Always academically inclined, he saw this as an “avenue to attend a great school,” and actually planned to play here at Harvard until his dream school, Stanford, entered the picture late in the process. The Palo Alto weather, rich volleyball tradition, and presence of other Wisconsinites on the team ultimately won the day, and he decided to change plans and try his luck in California.
And while, like most high school athletes, he experienced a steep learning curve upon arriving in the Bay Area, he quickly experienced success on the court in Palo Alto. He speaks fondly of his first game, where he found himself lined up against “one of his volleyball idols” – Jeremy Dejno, a Wisconsin legend turned star at UC-Irvine that Kaminski credits for enabling the success of those like him who followed in his footsteps. After adjusting to the speed and intensity of the college game, Kaminski flourished as a member of the Cardinal. They earned a trip to the National Championship game in 2014 – his sophomore season – after a five-set win over BYU, a traditional powerhouse to whom they’d lost convincingly just days before. Though the Cardinal fell short in the final, Kaminski used this opportunity to further develop his game, ultimately receiving the Ryan Millar award as the nation’s top middle blocker as a senior in 2016.
Following his successful college career, Kaminski was faced with a choice. Equipped with an engineering degree from Stanford, he had no shortage of career options off the court. However, he wasn’t ready to finish playing, and was inspired by players like Dejno who’d continued their careers after graduation to pursue professional volleyball. The lack of a men’s professional league in the United States forced him to look overseas, and after signing with an agent, he found himself headed to Ravenna, Italy to begin his pro career.
Describing the experience as “study abroad times a hundred,” he immediately immersed himself in the culture, taking team-sponsored Italian classes and building a life as an expat while competing for the first time as a professional athlete. Despite rudimentary training and recovery resources – he relied heavily on an imported HyperIce Foam Roller to loosen up muscle strains – Kaminski enjoyed his first season and looked forward to returning for a second. Adding to his excitement was the fact that he’d been asked to join the US Olympic Volleyball team’s training program as they began preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. He’d long aspired to this, and felt that he had a legitimate shot to make the roster and represent his country.
As fate would have it, though, Kaminski’s career would end long before that. Politics within the Italian volleyball community forced him out of Ravenna and onto a 2nd Division team near Viterbo, where the team’s doctors discovered a heart condition that prevented him from being allowed to play. He found himself at a true crossroads - though he tried for a while to find a team that would allow him to continue his career, he was deemed too large a risk for any team he approached. Forced to return to the US, he contemplated continuing his career but eventually realized that his heart condition would make teams hesitant to add him to their rosters. This forced him to begin to consider life off the court, and he leveraged a Stanford connection to discover and ultimately accept a job with Mainspring Energy, an off-grid energy startup in Silicon Valley with innovative linear generation technology. He describes the “small, scrappy team aligned behind their pursuit of a common goal” as an excellent fit for his competitive, curious personality, and he advanced quickly in his time there, receiving multiple promotions despite being one of the only engineers on staff without a graduate degree. While at Mainspring, he also discovered a passion for commercializing cutting-edge technology, which ultimately informed his decision to pursue a joint MS/MBA program here at Harvard.
Kaminski has taken advantage of the many opportunities available here and plans to stay in Boston following graduation; he’s working with a co-founder to bring a new testing method for the efficacy of antibiotics treatments to market. He’s also found time to help coach the Harvard Men’s Volleyball team, continuing a passion that he discovered while living in the Bay Area after his career ended. He’s a busy guy, and earning two degrees while working on a start-up and coaching a Division I sport would be more than enough to fill most people’s schedules.
However, any story about Kaminski would be incomplete without discussion of his faith, which informs every aspect of his life. A devout Catholic, he serves as President of HBS’ Catholic Students Association and lives in Hawthorn House, a Catholic men’s community in Cambridge. While he was raised Catholic, he grew in his faith at Stanford, where he became very involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and grew close to a Dominican priest working to rebuild the Catholic community on campus. Upon his return to the Bay Area after his playing career ended, he saw the fruits of his labor; the community had grown meaningfully in the years since he’d left. Seeking the same community in his adult life, he discovered St. Joseph’s Woodshop – a living community of like-minded Catholic men in the Bay Area. Kaminski moved in immediately prior to COVID, and he credits the friendships he made there for getting him through the challenges of the pandemic. When considering graduate programs, he sought out something familiar and found it in the Hawthorn House community here in Cambridge. Their mission to “make the ordinary holy” and provide generous hospitality aligns with his worldview, and the combination of common interest and shared values with his roommates allowed him to replicate the community he’d established in California almost immediately here in Boston.
Whether it’s in class, at mass here on campus, or on the volleyball court this winter, keep an eye out for Conrad. After all, at 6’8”, he’s tough to miss!
John Mahoney (MBA ’26) is a native of West Des Moines, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2021 with a degree in Finance. While in college, he was a walk-on defensive back for the Fighting Irish and wrote a book about his experience, titled History Through The Headsets. Prior to coming to HBS, John worked in consulting and strategy in Minneapolis and Chicago.
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