By Enzo Corso '26
Editor’s Note: Wellington alumni continue to amaze us with the many ways they shape their communities and industries. From entrepreneurs and innovators to educators and artists, they are charting bold paths forward while staying rooted in the values that connect them back to Wellington. Jags on the Roam celebrates these stories, offering a window into the impact our graduates are making in the world.
By the time Caleb Wooddell '22 walks across the stage at The Ohio State University this spring, his list of accomplishments will be hard to fit on a single page. Finance major at Fisher College of Business. Minors in Engineering Sciences and Film Studies. Named a Poets & Quants Best and Brightest Business Major, recognized as a Fisher Pace Setter, and recipient of the S. Maurice Bostic and Birch S.M. Bostic Memorial Award. He served as Captain of the Fisher Student Ambassadors, held a leadership role in Delta Sigma Pi, and will begin this summer as a Financial Analyst at The Wendy's Company, a role he earned after a standout internship there last year.
Ask him about any of it, and he is more likely to talk about a drive.
For four years, Caleb commuted to Ohio State from home, passing The Wellington School nearly every day on his way to campus. It became something he noticed without meaning to, that quiet daily reminder of how much his world had shifted. Not long ago, every face in Wellington's Upper School hallways was familiar. Now he was navigating one of the largest universities in the country, sometimes relying on Google Maps just to find the right building.
The transition was not seamless. Caleb entered Ohio State through the Integrated Business and Engineering Honors Program, a rigorous curriculum that combined two fields he found genuinely interesting but not always intuitive. His classmates seemed comfortable in ways he was not, at ease in coding projects and engineering labs while he quietly wondered whether he truly belonged there. During his first year, leaving the program was not just a passing thought. It was something he seriously considered.
Instead, he submitted an application to become a Fisher Ambassador.
It was a small decision. It changed everything. Through the program, Caleb found mentors, close friendships, and a real sense of community within a campus of tens of thousands. What had once felt impossibly large began to feel navigable, even meaningful. Eventually, he became Captain of the Fisher Ambassadors himself, guiding prospective students through the same uncertainties he had once faced.
That experience also changed how he understood success. In high school, most problems had a definitive answer waiting somewhere at the back of the textbook. Business did not work that way. The most interesting challenges were messier, shaped by people, judgment, and creativity rather than formulas. Caleb found himself drawn to work that sat at the intersection of analytics and storytelling, and that instinct is part of what led him to Wendy's.
A self-described food and film enthusiast, he had long been fascinated by the journey an idea takes from a brainstorming session to a national campaign. His internship at Wendy's gave him a front-row seat to exactly that. He watched teams develop the brand's collaboration with Netflix's "Wednesday," seeing firsthand how finance, marketing, and storytelling are not separate functions but deeply connected ones. It was the kind of work that matched his unusual combination of interests in ways he had not anticipated when he first arrived at Ohio State.
Even now, with four years of college behind him, some of Caleb's clearest memories belong to Wellington. The school's sense of community is something he returns to often, something he admits he did not fully appreciate until he no longer had it. One moment that has stayed with him is a speech class project with Mr. Eberly and Mr. Glover. The assignment called for a TED-style talk. Caleb chose to speak about yoga and opened by asking the entire audience to stand up and follow along. He was terrified. He did it anyway. Looking back, he recognizes it as an early lesson in acting before you feel completely ready, one that has followed him into nearly every leadership role since.
As graduation approaches, Caleb is not focused on racing toward the next milestone. He wants to keep learning, to build relationships that matter, and someday to be the kind of mentor who helped him find his footing when he needed it most. His advice to current Wellington students is straightforward. You do not need to have your entire future mapped out. Some of the most important doors open from the smallest decisions: an application sent on a whim, a conversation with someone you just met, a chance you almost did not take.