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Alumni award honorees showcase diverse talents, backgrounds

The six alumni honorees at the College of Business May 7 Celebration of Excellence each bring a unique story, talents and even geography.

This year the award winners will travel to Portland from four different states and the United Arab Emirates. While two currently live in Oregon, one recently moved back after six years living and working in New York City.

The 2013 honorees include:

Hall of Fame

Dr. Robert G. Zahary, higher education consultant (United Arab Emirates) 

Dr. Robert Zahary is an international Higher Education Consultant, with experience throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the USA. For more than 10 years he was a Founding Director of SpringStart Education Group, Pte. Ltd., a Singapore based consultancy in higher education.

Dr. Zahary received a B.S. from Oregon State University in Business and Technology in 1965. After working as a CPA in Southern California he returned to higher education to earn an MBA from Southern California and then a B.A. from California State University, Los Angeles in Biology and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of Southern California.

After more than 20 years teaching and working in administration in the CSU system, Zahary moved to Singapore to work with a small university there, eventually starting his own consulting firm. He’s lived or worked in 94 countries, currently in the United Arab Emirates.

 

Distinguished Service Award

Frank Morse, Oregon State Senator and businessman (Albany, Ore.)

Frank Morse served 10 years as a senator in the Oregon Legislature after working for and eventually taking over Morse Bros., the construction materials company his father started in 1941.

Morse started his career in the ministry, serving as the Associate Pastor of the Forest Grove Christian Church.  He joined the family business in 1972 and served as President of the Morse Bros. for nearly 20 years.

Morse was elected to the Oregon State Senate in 2002. A primary focus of Senator Morse’s legislative tenure was to build a stable fiscal foundation for the state. One of his most successful bills is what is called the University Venture Development Fund, a very unique way of funding the commercialization of university research.

Morse prided himself on collaborating with members of both parties, highlighted by being named Oregon Business Association Statesman of the Year. Upon Morse’s retirement, Senate President Peter Courtney called him “the perfect Oregonian.”

 

Distinguished Business Professional:

Gordon Clemons ’65, chairman and CEO, CorVel Corporation (North Carolina)

Gordon Clemons founded CorVel Corporation in 1988.  From 1988, Mr. Clemons held the position of President and Chief Executive Officer. When CorVel became a publicly traded enterprise in 1991,  Mr. Clemons became Chairman of the Board. Today he serves as Chairman and CEO.

Prior to his career at CorVel, Mr. Clemons was President of Caremark, Inc., a NASDAQ company and the then-largest home intravenous therapy company in the United States. In 1987 Caremark was purchased by Baxter International.  Mr. Clemons also served as President of both Intracorp and of Advanta, after beginning his career as a division manager at FMC Corporation. Mr. Clemons has over 40 years of experience in the healthcare and insurance industries.

 

 

Don Atkinson, senior executive, Sales Management, Marketing and Business Development (Federal Way, Wa.) 

Don Atkinson is an innovative and highly successful executive with over 20 years of experience in corporate leadership, new product development and professional consulting leading.

At Weyerhaeuser Cellulose Fibers, he served as Vice President of Market Development and Innovation. Atkinson also held various finance positions with Willamette Industries, before leading the integration of Willamette Industries and Weyerhaeuser. Prior to that, Mr. Atkinson was a CPA and audit manager for Deloitte & Touche.

He has been a College of Business Dean’s Circle of Excellence member since 2009, and is affiliated with the OSU College of Business Accounting Circle. He serves as Board Member and President of the Epilepsy Foundation of Oregon Rotarian, and is active in fundraising for Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital.

 

Distinguished Early Career Business Professional

Meadow Clendenin Stahlnecker ‘99, attorney, Patton Boggs LLP (Dallas, Texas)

Meadow Stahlnecker is a business transactions attorney at Patton Boggs LLP in Dallas, Texas.  She provides legal counsel to a variety of investors, including those in the venture, mezzanine, senior-secured and Shari’ah-compliant sectors relative to both debt and equity transactions.  During her tenure at Patton Boggs, she has also provided nearly 1,000 hours of pro bono legal services to indigent clients and non-profit organizations.

After graduating from the Oregon State College of Business, she served as Assistant Vice President within the Technology Practice Group at Marsh in Portland, where she provided risk and insurance consulting services to emerging and middle market technology clients.  She also served on the Board of Directors and as the Membership Committee Chair for the Oregon Entrepreneurs Forum (now known as the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network).

In 2004, Stahlnecker was awarded a merit scholarship to attend the Emory University School of Law in Atlanta. During law school, she was a member of Emory and Georgia Tech’s multi-disciplinary TI:GER(r) program through which she developed commercialization strategies for a cancer-detecting nano-biotechnology product and earned top awards in several international business plan competitions.

 

Distinguished Young Business Professional

Alicia Miller ‘05, senior financial analyst, Nike, Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.) 

Alicia Miller is a Senior Financial Analyst with Nike in Global Apparel Margin Planning Management.

In 2006 Miller decided to move to New York without a job over or place to stay, living on friends’ couches while interviewing for jobs.

She eventually found a home with the luxury retail firm Coach. Miller worked with the company for five years advancing to a senior planner in global inventory.

Miller is a 2005 graduate of Oregon State University with a degree in Business Administration.  She grew up in Bend, Ore., graduating from Mountain View High School.The annual Alumni and Business Partner Awards recognize outstanding professional achievements and services to the college by alumni and business partners.

 

Now in its 12th year, the College of Business Alumni and Business Partner Awards recognize outstanding professional achievements and services to the college by alumni and business partners. For more information or to register, go to http://business.oregonstate.edu/awards or contact Rachelle Nickerson at rachelle.nickerson@oregonstate.edu.

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Fuhrman brings recruiter’s knowledge to help students at Career Success Center

Early on in her career, Brandi Fuhrman realized that her favorite part in any position she held was helping her coworkers.

“I like feeling like I’ve been helping someone,” said Fuhrman, the new director of the College of Business Career Success Center.

“We’re all human, we all make mistakes,” she said. “If I can help someone by sharing about my mistakes or just observations as I try to help them through something and help them be better, that for me is really rewarding.”

As the new Internship and Career Services Coordinator for the Career Success Center, that’s Fuhrman’s main task, helping COB students not only connect with jobs and internships but preparing them for those opportunities and present themselves in the best way possible.

The Career Success Center helps students prepare for a job search and eventual career through information sessions with companies, professional development workshops to teach essential personal skills and other services such as job and internship listings, resume help and more.

Fuhrman is excited by the possibilities the center holds (she started officially Feb. 6) and is looking forward to adding to its offerings.

“Everyone has been extremely welcoming. The students have been great,” Fuhrman said. “I think it has the ability to grow quite a bit.”

A native of Southern California, Fuhrman came to Oregon to attend the University of Portland before coming to Oregon State for her MBA in 2003.

Most recently Fuhrman worked as a senior operations leader for Target in Albany, running the shipping department but also working as a recruiter and helping develop Target managers for more senior positions with the company.

“A lot of what Target’s culture is and what drew me to this job is development,” she said. “A lot of time was spent working with my direct managers and helping to develop them so that they can get promoted or help them become better leaders.”

She remembered one manager who needed work on interpersonal skills, but showed promise with more analytical tasks.

Fuhrman worked to develop ways for him to spark conversations with coworkers while also introducing him to company leaders who could help develop his skills with data and analytics.

“He was a huge asset to Target but maybe not in that role,” Fuhrman said. “He was probably your average manager, but I saw the potential. That was extremely rewarding.”

As a recruiter, Fuhrman represented Target at career fairs, mock interviews and other events, those same activities she’ll now counsel College of Business students in mastering.

“I was the person on the other side at the career fair, trying to tell you about Target, analyzing the student standing in front of me,” she said. “Now I’m on the other side trying to give them tips and pointers on how to be the person standing in front of the recruiter that when you walk away the recruiter is writing great things about you on your resume instead of putting it in the ‘no’ pile.”

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SIM Club gets real-world experience with Windows 8 code-a-thon

Brian Holmes, center, reacts as a problem is fixed while Microsoft Developer Evangelist Bret Stateham (standing) and JB van Hecke (left) look on.

Oregon State students JB van Hecke and Brian Holmes sat at their computers, working back and forth on the problems on the screens in front of them and the pizza in their hands.

“I know I’ll be up all night playing with this,” said van Hecke, a BIS major. “I’ll be cranking the coffee and Mountain Dew I guess.”

The pair was part of a group of 17 Oregon State students to participate in a Windows 8 Code-a-thon Friday in Bexell Hall, hosted by the OSU Students of Information Management (SIM) Club.

Students received instruction from a pair of Windows developers in the new Windows 8 app environment and the staple of any good code-a-thon, a free lunch.

The day grew out of a request OSU Instructor and Weatherford Faculty in Residence Michael Curry received from a group of students in his coding class fall term who were interested in turning those skills into a business.

“[They] expressed a desire to be entrepreneurs, so I agreed to help them out,” Curry said. “The goal was the build a business around these apps.”

Curry contacted Microsoft, which provided equipment, instructors and even an xBox 360 to hand out to the team with the best app at the end of the day.

Microsoft developer evangelists Bret Stateham and Jeremy Foster, a former high school teacher himself, gave students a quick overview of Windows 8 app development before leaving the afternoon open for groups to work on their own projects.

Foster said the code-a-thons help get new apps into the Windows store immediately but also introduce new talent to software development and the Windows platform. In addition to Corvallis, Foster was visiting college campuses in Eugene, Bothell, Wash., and Boise, Idaho.

He said college students often have the enthusiasm and most importantly time to get into the new concepts quickly.

“It’s something where college students tend to have the time,” Foster said. “They have heavy course loads but maybe some time in the evening.”

Which was exactly when van Hecke and Holmes were planning to dive into the Windows 8 platform more.

“If I get a game done today that’ll be good, but it’s a great tool,” van Hecke said at the lunch break.

Overall seven new apps were added to the Windows 8 store. Van Hecke and Holmes ended up completing a traffic jam app during the session, winning the xBox. Runners up were Darlene Veenhuizen and Trevor Husseman, who created an apple catching game.

Curry said those apps are tangible benefits students can show as they compete for jobs and internships.

“We’re trying to make opportunities,” Curry said. “It’s not just the classes that get them the job, but the projects they can work on outside that get them the job.”

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Weatherford Award ceremony shows entrepreneurs come from all walks of life

Thursday night Oregon State University MBA candidate Dale McCauley told the crowd at the 2013 Weatherford Awards in Portland how he got started as an innovator.

“When I was 4 years old my parents gave me a tool box. With real tools,” McCauley said. “Nothing with bolts was safe.”

It was a fitting start to an evening honoring entrepreneurs and innovators, those who saw the tools they had at their disposal and found a way to change the world, or in the case of 4-year-old McCauley, his mother’s Cuisinart.

McCauley is also a key part of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program, which sponsored the awards and is housed in Weatherford Hall. The program, supported by a gift from Ken and Joan Austin, helps expose current Oregon State students to the ideas and practice of entrepreneurship and teach the next generations of business visionaries.

One of the first students to come out of the program was Alex Polvi, who was honored with fellow OSU alumni Dan Di Spaltro and Logan Welliver for the their startup, Cloudkick.

“We had no clue what we were doing,” Di Spaltro said.

“We had some clue,” Polvi interjected.

“No clue.”

Di Spaltro spoke of the trio’s defining ideas of humor, trust, determination and keeping the operation lean.

“We had a team in it for the dream, not the paycheck,” Polvi said.

Also honored was Dr. Albert Starr, who helped develop the first artificial heart valve while working at what is now Oregon Health and Science University in 1958.

He said one of the keys to innovation is confidence, having the strength to push ahead even when the outcome is uncertain.

Starr remembered the first time OHSU approached him about cardiac surgery, something he hadn’t trained for specifically.

“He said Starr, can you do this type of surgery?” Starr said. “Of course.”

While Experian CEO Don Robert is confident in his business life, he was less so when he received the letter informing him he was a 2013 Weatherford Award honoree.

He called College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge to let her know she had the wrong guy. He was the CEO of the world’s largest credit services company, not an entrepreneur.

“She told me maybe we have the wrong guy, but we’ve got the right company,” Robert said.

That he agreed with. Experian thrives on institutional innovation, Robert said, with much of the company’s business coming from products that didn’t exist five years ago.

“The job of our management team is to not screw that up and get in the way of good ideas. I will take the credit humbly for not screwing it up.”

The final honoree of the evening was Oregon’s first and still only woman governor, Barbara Roberts.

“Some of you are wincing to think about innovation in government,” Roberts said. “But in Oregon it does and has happened.”

Roberts mentioned Oregon’s vote by mail system, the Death With Dignity Act and a number of other legislative firsts which show Oregon’s pioneering character.

“I am a descendent of Oregon Trail pioneers,” she said. “You don’t stop. You don’t turn back.”

Roberts left the stage with a line from her inaugural address (“Not everyone gets to say that,” she added with a laugh).

“Each generation has but one chance to be judged by future generations,” Roberts said. “Now is out time. Let us be worthy of their judgment. ”

 

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What will happen to Bexell’s wood murals after Austin Hall?

Wood work mural in Bexell Hall

The Daily Barometer had a great story looking at the origins of the Bexell Hall wood murals, which line the entrance to the hall.

The murals date to the 1930s and depict a number of people important to the history of Oregon State University and the state of Oregon itself, including John Andrew Bexell himself.

After posting the story on Facebook, though, we got a question not about the murals’ past but their future. A commenter was curious what happens to the murals after the College of Business moves to Austin Hall in fall of 2014.

We got in touch with Malcolm LeMay, Director of Operations for the college, to see what’s planned for the murals once the College of Business moves on.

“The murals belong to Bexell and will not be moved,” LeMay said.

Oregon State doesn’t see buildings belonging to an individual college, as programs change names and locations quite a bit. With that in mind, the murals will stay put.

And that will give College of Business faculty, staff, students and alumni another reason to come back and visit Bexell from time to time.

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Things are moving at Austin Hall site

You may have noticed some movement across the street from Weatherford Hall, where the new Austin Hall is set to open in fall of 2014. While the official construction hasn’t begun yet, there’s work already starting on the area. We’ll have updates as things progress, so keep checking back.

UPDATE: You can also watch the process as it happens with the webcam focused on the site.

A backhoe moves on the future site of Austin Hall with Weatherford Hall in the background.
A backhoe moves on the future site of Austin Hall with Weatherford Hall in the background.
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Happy snow day, Bexell Hall

Corvallis got a light dusting of snow today and we spent the morning playing in the snow taking photos of Bexell Hall covered in white. Happy winter break everyone.

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Dean Ilene Kleinsorge honored with naming of new boardroom

College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge is shocked as she's greeted into the library at the CH2M HIll alumni Center.
College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge is shocked as she's greeted into the library at the CH2M HIll alumni Center.

Walking to the CH2M Hill Alumni Center library July 12, Oregon State College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge took one look at the buffet table and sighed.

“My immediate thought was how unfortunate it was they had to order so much for six people,” Kleinsorge said referring to the number of people she thought would be at the reception.

What the Sara Hart Kimball Dean didn’t know was her family, friends and colleagues had assembled to recognize her by naming the Dean’s Boardroom at Austin Hall, the future home of the College of Business, in her honor.

Kleinsorge was presented with a plaque recognizing the accolade, which will hang in her office until permanent signage is installed in Austin Hall after its scheduled completion in 2014.

“I see three faces [walking in],” Kleinsorge remembered. “I see [alumnus and donor] Larry Brown, [OSU President] Ed Ray then I see my daughter. I’m trying to put it together and it didn’t make sense. It really didn’t until the plaque.”

Since becoming Dean in 2003, Kleinsorge has pushed for the new building, working tirelessly to help raise the needed funds. The building is named for Ken and Joan Austin, alumni who committed $10 million to the project.

With the project nearing success, a group of alumni decided a more permanent reminder of Kleinsorge’s efforts was needed, stepping up to make the naming possible:

  • Stephen and Marian Bailey
  • Larry H. and Dena Brown
  • Malcolm and Monette LeMay
  • Duane and Barbara McDougall
  • Jon and Margie Masterson
  • Bernie Newcomb
  • Irva Kay Neyhart
  • Tod and Kimberly Perkins
  • Patricia Reser
  • Don and Jennifer Robert
  • John and Kate Stirek
  • Ken and Marta Thrasher
  • Jack and Virginia Wilborn
Ken Thrasher presents College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge with a plaque recognizing the naming of the AUstin Hall Dean's Boardroom in her honor.
Ken Thrasher presents College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge with a plaque recognizing the naming of the AUstin Hall Dean's Boardroom in her honor.

Ken Thrasher hosted the presentation, thanking Kleinsorge for her service and noting her commitment to getting the Austin Hall campaign off the ground.

“Her leadership has been absolutely phenomenal,” Thrasher said. “It’s been a wonderful tribute to her to have this be a part of her legacy of what she’s created at Oregon State University and the College of Business.”

President Ray said he’s been impressed with Kleinsorge’s ability to articulate what the building would mean to those outside the university. As Ray pointed out, just telling someone you need a new building isn’t enough.

“You actually need to be talking about the extraordinary things you’re accomplishing despite the [current] building, and you need a great building to match the great people and things that are being accomplished,” Ray said. “Ilene and her colleagues did a tremendous job demonstrating the quality of the faculty and students they were attracting and what the possibilities were longer term, bringing them all together.”

Kleinsorge said she didn’t feel the full impact of the honor until an early-morning walk on Sunday.

“I was an emergency room nurse,” she said. “You take that shock and trauma, and if you emote, you do it at home where it won’t affect the outcome.

“[Sunday] I began to think about each of the people on the plaque, how important each has been in supporting me, and the tears flowed,” Kleinsorge said.

While Kleinsorge said it’s difficult to express the depth of her gratitude for the honor, she sees it as an indication she succeeded in both staying true to the needs of Oregon State students while connecting with those outside Corvallis.

“It means a great deal,” she said. “Future Oregon State University business students will know they had a dean who cared enough that they had a place to inspire them.”

College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge poses with donors.
College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge poses with donors who contributed to naming the Austin Hall Boardroom in her honor..

As for the donors who made the honor possible, Kleinsorge said each name engraved into the plaque represents a personal connection that’s helped make Austin Hall a reality.

“They reflect what is the best part of OSU. A generous spirit, success, strong ethic, and they value education.

“I will always be in their gratitude,” she said.

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New photos of Austin Hall released

This month we got some new sketches of the proposed look for Austin Hall, the future home of the Oregon State College of Business.

The building, made possible by a $10 million commitment from alumni Ken and Joan Austin, will be an expansive 100,000 square feet and include 10 classrooms, a 250-seat auditorium, a cafe and event space and other amenities.

These images come from THA Architecture, the design firm working on the building, planned to open in fall of 2014.