 He grew the program's co-curricular activities so that during their studies each Patterson School student would have the opportunity — at no additional cost — to visit the headquarters or manufacturing operations of 12-15 major corporations in the Midwest and South (such as Aflac, AGCO, Boeing, BP, Brown-Forman, CME, Coca-Cola, Conagra, First Solar, General Dynamics, Eli Lilly, Invesco, MillerCoors, P&G, Toyota, UPS, and U.S. Steel), US government agencies and foreign diplomatic missions.This includes exposing students directly to the U.S. armed forces with visits to Fort Benning, Fort Knox, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and to the work of non-governmental organizations such as the Carter Center, The Task Force for Global Health, Save the Children, and CARE.Cavanaugh also established greater engagement with defense/security entities such as the Department of Energy's Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the United States Army War College.