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The wide world of Jackie Swint

Jackie Swint and her friend, Foy Renfro, outside the Austin Hall project room Swint sponsored.
Jackie Swint and her friend, Foy Renfro, outside the Austin Hall project room Swint sponsored.

College of Business donor Jackie Swint of Tigard toured Austin Hall for the first time on Feb. 28, taking enthusiastic notice of the project room she sponsors, the gleaming and mesmerizing Abacus sculpture that hangs from the ceiling, and … the students’ backpacks.

“Why are all of those people wearing backpacks?” she asked.

Another member of the tour group explained to Swint, a 1951 College of Business graduate, that backpacks were simply the tool of choice these days for hauling around textbooks, laptop, etc.

“Well, I guess it’s better than just carrying a pile of books,” she said.

Swint knows a bit about both books and luggage, having traveled the globe as a secretary for the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State. Equipped with her degree in secretarial science, she worked in eight countries and eventually published “Who Was That Man?” (Inkwater Press, 2008, $22.95), a collection of stories about her adventures.

The title refers to an on-train encounter in the old Soviet Union with a person Swint imagines as possibly being USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

“She saw the world,” said Foy Renfro, formerly of the Oregon State University Foundation, who worked with Swint to set up the scholarships she funds and also accompanied her on her trip to Austin Hall. “Without OSU, she would not have been able to do all of those things, and she’s very appreciative of that.”

Among the ways Swint shows that appreciation is $10,000 in annual scholarship money distributed to four female students in the College of Business, one in each year in school; $1,000 goes to a freshman, $2,000 to a sophomore, $3,000 to a junior, and $4,000 a senior.

Financial need and academic excellence are the criteria used by the College of Business Scholarship Committee in determining the winners.

This year’s recipients are Ilwaad Aman, Jamie Martin, Annemarie Lewandowski and Allyssa Taylor.

Each year, Ilene Kleinsorge, dean of the college, brings her scholarship recipients to Portland to have dinner with Swint “so she can share her stories with her students.”

In addition to sponsoring the project room and funding the scholarships, Swint has donated to the Memorial Union a collection of 11 rubbings she made at the sites of various bas-relief carvings at temples and other ancient building sites in places such as Cambodia, Thailand, Peru and Greece.

“She thought if international students saw something of beauty from their own country it would help them to feel proud of where they came from and less homesick,” Kleinsorge said.

Lewandowski, who helped show Swint around during her visit, was impressed by her concern for other people, among other parts of her personality and life.

“She wanted to ensure that women within the College of Business have a chance to do what she did,” said Lewandowski, a junior majoring in management. “She wanted to show us that we could do it, too.

“She’s so sculpted by her travels and has such a good world perspective,” Lewandowski said. “Every aspect of her life is so intriguing. I was just completely inspired by this lady. She was so great. I wish I could have sat with her all day and just listened.”

 

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IT crew is at your service

Student workers are made to feel right at home in the information services office.
Student workers are made to feel right at home in the information services office.

The College of Business’ information services staff wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Asking the helpdesk for assistance means never having to say you’re sorry.

“That’s what we’re here for,” said Doug Weir, operating systems and network analyst. “You’re not bothering us.”

Weir and six colleagues, including four student workers, took an hour during spring break to talk about keeping Austin Hall’s hardware and software functioning at peak performance.

Weir, Alan Sprague (engineer/systems administrator), Kirk Wydner (operating systems and network analyst) and Kyle Ribacchi (information technology consultant) all have specific areas they focus on – virtual desktop infrastructures, server site management, end-user computing, etc.

“But we all can cover for each other,” Sprague said.

The College of Business’ tech arsenal includes about 300 PCs and roughly five dozen servers, one of which is home to more than 1.3 million files.

The college’s move to Austin Hall meant relocating to possibly the most technologically integrated building on campus, Sprague said. Consider, for just one example, the electronic key card and reservation system that coordinates use of the project rooms; or for another, the rooftop and interior sensors that control the intensity of office lighting.

“There’s not a single space in Austin that doesn’t have some IT component,” he said.

The information services staff generally includes about 20 students who put in varying amounts of time. The students help close out helpdesk “tickets” – requests for tech support, of which there are typically around three dozen open – and do whatever else is needed to keep the college digitally functioning.

“They get invested in the college and what we do,” said Sprague, who along with his colleagues is proud and pleased to be able to help the student crew learn, grow and become job ready.

The main skill set stressed to the students working the helpdesk is customer service.

“It’s about getting the person on track, solving their problems,” said Paul Van Wagoner.

Fellow student worker Robbie Toombs pointed out that the No. 1 helpdesk priority is any ticket involving an instructional need “so students can actually get the full benefit of the classes they’re paying to take.”

Weir said student workers leave OSU with the skills to be junior-level system administrators at major corporations. Sprague said most receive multiple job offers.

“It’s a very giving and upbeat environment,” Mike Stuckart said.

Added Albert Le: “I’ve gained lots of knowledge I don’t think I could get anywhere else.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Capstone presentation tests students

BA 466 students present in class. From left are Zachary Bergthold, Connor Howard, Nicholas Rector, Georgia Brown and Megan McGinty.
BA 466 students present in class. From left are Zachary Bergthold, Connor Howard, Nicholas Rector, Georgia Brown and Megan McGinty.

In the real world, the information a manager has to go on isn’t always tidy or thorough – that’s one of the lessons Amol Joshi, assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship, hopes his BA 466 students learn through the team case analysis presentation that makes up one-sixth of their final grade.

The course syllabus calls BA 466, Integrative Strategic Experience, “the undergraduate capstone course at Oregon State University’s College of Business.” It’s designed as the final preparation for students before beginning their careers and/or graduate school.

Joshi taught two sections of BA 466 winter term, roughly 60 students, and following the last midterm exam in mid-February he divided the students into 12 teams; each team’s mission was to analyze a problem faced by an actual company and make a set of strategic recommendations using knowledge and concepts picked up throughout the course.

The teams, dressed in business attire, made their presentations in class during dead week, meaning they had about three weeks to get everything together. Each presentation was 20 minutes, plus a 10-minute question-and-answer period.

“I really enjoyed working as a team with people I had never met,” student Melissa Marcaletti said. “The project taught us how to work well as a business team, and it was great to see the final product and recommendations that we came up with.”

The problems were given to the students in the form of classic cases that are part of the business curricula at either Stanford or MIT, Joshi said. Each dealt with an industry and company the students hadn’t yet studied – industries included automobiles, solar power and pharmaceuticals – and they were required to use only the information given to them in the roughly 30-page case studies.

“I wanted to simulate a real managerial situation,” Joshi said. “Often a manager is given incomplete, imperfect information and has to make the best decision he can based on that – he or she can’t simply look on the Internet and find a solution. We want to teach critical thinking. And the teams were picked at random because in the business world, unless you own the company, you don’t get to build your own team.

“From my own experience as a manager, I believe many aspects of management are conversational,” added Joshi, a former electrical engineer who’s worked for a variety of firms including BeVocal, Inc., a voice-recognition-technology company he founded and later sold. “You have to engage co-workers and colleagues in dialogue and discussion and debate so you can figure out what’s going on, and I want to help students be more persuasive in their management decisions, to create more compelling points.”

Solar energy was the industry this team spoke about. From left are Gunther Klaus, Melissa Marcaletti, Joseph Forrest, Alex Lewellyn and Jiyuan Yao.
Solar energy was the industry this team spoke about. From left are Gunther Klaus, Melissa Marcaletti, Joseph Forrest, Alex Lewellyn and Jiyuan Yao.
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Compete for a Wildfang internship

Emma McIlroy explains the WF Intern Challenge to College of Business students. Emma McIlroy explains the WF Intern Challenge to College of Business students.
Emma McIlroy explains the WF Intern Challenge to College of Business students.
Emma McIlroy explains the WF Intern Challenge to College of Business students.

Emma McIlroy, co-founder and CEO of tomboy-style clothing retailer Wildfang, was on campus Feb. 26 to invite students from multiple College of Business disciplines to compete for a pair of paid 10-week internships at the Portland-based startup.

The deadline is April 14 to enter the WF Intern Challenge. The challenge is actually five separate challenges that students can choose from depending on their major, expertise and experience.

Basic details are as follows:

  • Design and merchandising students are asked to create four to six pieces for Wildfang’s fall/holiday 2015 Tomboy collection, each retailing for less than $100.
  • Marketing students can either come up with a five-day run-of-show social media campaign, or identify two key consumer moments in 2015 and show a plan “to activate them for Wildfang.”
  • Business students’ mission is to predict where Wildfang might be in five years and give three examples of how the company could potentially modify its business and/or operating models.
  • Operations students are tasked with figuring out the metrics that matter most to a business like Wildfang and how they might trend over the next two years, and providing three initiatives to improve in some or all of those areas.

Nine students attended McIlroy’s presentation in Austin Hall. Wildfang is hoping to hire two interns, each of whom will receive a $1,000 stipend and course credit.

“We’re looking for people with a passion for learning and understanding our brand and our consumers,” she said.

For more information on the intern challenge, visit http://on.fb.me/1MvQ9re.

For more on the company, go to www.wildfang.com.

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Students prep via mock interviews

Employers and students descended on the CH2M HILL Alumni Center ballroom for the mock interviews.
Employers and students descended on the CH2M HILL Alumni Center ballroom for the mock interviews.

Representatives from 23 employers helped College of Business students prepare to compete for jobs Feb. 20 during 5½ hours of mock interviews at the CH2M HILL Alumni Center.

Among the participating organizations were COB corporate partners Mutual of Enumclaw and adidas.

“We’ve developed a very strong relationship with the College of Business, and every time we interact with someone from the business school, we walk away amazed at how much of a partnership we’ve built and how cool the students are,” said Larry Beck, a trainer for Mutual of Enumclaw who was conducting mock interviews at Oregon State for the first time.

Added adidas recruiter Thomas Stuyvesant, also a first-time mock interviewer: “We get a lot of talent from OSU, so it’s important for us to maintain that relationship. It’s about pipelining and building goodwill and preparing these strong students to be successful in their careers. It could pay immediate dividends for us, or it could be down the road.”

Prior to the start of the afternoon session, Stuyvesant said he was “very impressed” with the students he’d talked to.

“It’s been great,” he said. “I’ve interviewed four so far, and they’ve all had obvious strengths. One of them, I wish he’d have applied for our internship; he’d have been a great candidate.”

Student reactions to the interviews were just as positive.

“I thought it was so helpful,” said Megan Goody, a junior in finance and management, following an interview with a representative from Target. “I haven’t done a lot of interviews, and she made me feel relaxed, at ease about this whole situation. I was so nervous going into it.

“I think you just need to relax before you answer a question and not let nerves get to you. Take a deep breath — you do have a second to think.”

Mohannad Hadi, a senior business information systems student, interviewed with a representative of the State of Oregon.

“It was really worth it,” he said. “She gave me a lot of advice. I’m planning to get a graduate degree, and she gave advice about what fields to go into.”

And he also learned a key lesson about being a strong interviewee.

“That I should relate my answers to experience listed in resume,” Hadi said. “That was really useful.”

 

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The value of studying abroad

Allison Scallon, right, with Olivia Gonzales at a viewpoint overlooking the Dolomites.
Allison Scallon, right, with Olivia Gonzales at a viewpoint overlooking the Dolomites.

Studying abroad means gaining insights about yourself as well as about other cultures, two Oregon State University design seniors said after spending fall term 2014 in Florence, Italy.

“I learned I was more independent than I thought,” said Allison Scallon, an apparel design and merchandising management major who studied at Accademia Italiana, an international fine arts university.

Scallon was one of nine OSU students at AI last fall, a group that also included apparel design major Haley Lillybridge.

“Don’t be the thing that limits you from doing what you want,” Lillybridge said. “There are plenty of other limitations – don’t let yourself be one of them. Get yourself out of your comfort zone.”

Lillybridge and Scallon were among seven students who took part in a panel discussion in January aimed at encouraging others to study abroad. The panel also included Aaron LaVigne, who studied in Denmark; Cristina Juarez-Hernandez (Thailand); Elyse Hathaway (Germany); Fiona Bai (Spain); Arseniy Goldberg (Czech Republic) and Phung Mach (South Korea).

Haley Lillybridge, with the ruins of Pompeii in the background.
Haley Lillybridge, with the ruins of Pompeii in the background.

For Lillybridge, Accademia Italia fulfilled a five-year-old aspiration that originated with an 11-day tour to Switzerland, Italy and France that she took while a junior in high school in Bremerton, Wash.

“It was just a quick view of everything, and Florence was my favorite city,” she said. “I wanted to come back; I always had that goal to live abroad.”

She took five courses in Italy – history of 20th century fashion, history of Tuscany, advanced Italian, graphic design, and screen printing – and visited 11 countries.

“I’m a cold-weather person, so I went north and west,” said Lillybridge, who’s the president of the OSU snowboarding club, C.ORE Freeride, and aspires to a career in the technical design of winter outerwear.

Scallon’s interests, meanwhile, lie in surfwear product development – she’s from Burbank, Calif. – and she also had five classes in Florence: photographing Florence, fashion illustration, Italian, collections, and history of fashion.

Her photography class included stops at places such as the home of Michelangelo.

“We had a museum pass that allowed us to go to basically any museum in Florence,” said Scallon, who two months after returning still thinks about her trip every day.

She advises students considering going abroad to “just do it.”

“Don’t have fear,” she said. “You’ll learn a lot about yourself. The world is big but not that big – I met an OSU alum in Amsterdam.”

For more information about studying overseas, visit http://business.oregonstate.edu/international-opportunities.

Lillybridge took this photo from the Great Tower in San Gimignano, Tuscany.
Lillybridge took this photo from the Great Tower in San Gimignano, Tuscany.
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Loge event caps career fair

Students and employers mingle at last month's career fair.
Students and employers mingle at last month’s career fair.

More than 100 employers and about 800 students came together Feb. 18 at the all-majors winter career fair hosted by OSU’s Career Development Center at the CH2M HILL Alumni Center.

Afterward, the College of Business and the Department of Athletics held a reception in the Reser Stadium loge that gave COB students and Beaver athletes a chance to connect with prospective employers in a less formal, more conversational setting.

Strong consensus among recruiters and job seekers alike indicated that both events were valuable as well as enjoyable.

“I love going to these things,” recent marketing graduate Chris Pham said at the career fair. “It’s a great chance to network.”

“It’s excellent,” agreed freshman pre-business student Sean Fox, who had talked with roughly a dozen companies. “I’m trying to position myself so that two or three years from now I can put together a resume that looks like I have five or six years of experience.”

A few hours later in the loge level of the football stadium’s northeast grandstand, College of Business students had a second opportunity to market themselves.

“More informal conversations, more personal,” is how Matt Adams, a junior studying finance and business information systems, described the after-hours reception. Among other things, Adams used the event as a chance to talk with a representative from Fisher Investments for a fifth time.

“Anytime students get to interact with professionals, it’s great,” said Sukhpreet Singh, a senior double-majoring in business information systems and accounting. “I’m trying to get a lot of companies interested in me and weigh which is the best fit for me. You can’t know what’s the best fit if you only look at one or two.”

Slade Crooks, general manager of Foodguys, called the after-hours reception “a great event.”

“You get to talk to students in a more casual setting and get insight into who they really are,” he said. “I’m looking for people interested in sales, so I watch how they interact, who the wallflowers are, who are the aggressive ones who put themselves out there.”

Juili Tonape, an MBA student in the marketing track, was trying to do just that. She admitted, though, “it’s not really natural for me. It’s a little overwhelming.”

In all, the reception featured more than 100 students and representatives from roughly 80 businesses.

 

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They believe in MAGIC

Three dozen students, roughly double the size of Oregon State’s typical contingent, immersed themselves in the fashion industry’s biggest trade show last month, the world-renowned MAGIC event in Las Vegas.

Chrissy Walter, left, and Eliot Frack enjoyed the Women's Wear Daily photo booth.
Chrissy Walter, left, and Eliot Frack enjoyed the Women’s Wear Daily photo booth.

“It’s usually 18 or 20, but I can’t justify turning anyone down,” said apparel design instructor Marianne Dickson, who led the group. “Especially because the more people who go, the cheaper it becomes. I have students who have never left Oregon, never been on plane, but it’s a really great experience even for people who travel all the time.”

The three-day, two-night trip is a relatively inexpensive one since MAGIC grants Dickson and her students free admission.

“We’re one of the few schools that go – I don’t know why,” she said. “We started about eight years ago. I just called and got permission and we’ve been doing it ever since.”

MAGIC stands for the Men’s Apparel Guild In California, which organized its first show in 1933 in Los Angeles. The twice-yearly events, one in February, the other in August, have been held in Las Vegas since 1988. About 80,000 people were at the Mandalay Bay and Las Vegas convention centers for the most recent edition of the largest global marketplace for apparel, accessories, footwear and sourcing resources.

“Students get to see thousands of brands that have booths, large and small, and they get to see the products that will be in stores in three to six months,” Dickson said. “They get to witness buyers from all over the world meeting with brands and placing orders and hear about the latest trends in fashion and manufacturing.”

Eliot Frack, a senior double-majoring in apparel design and merchandising management, learned that when it comes to deal-making, everything is “a huge haggle.”

“How it’s delivered, who it’s delivered to, who’s paying for shipment – you hear conversations going on all over the place in the background,” she said.

Grant Abel, a senior in merchandising management, took note of the power of social media.

“One thing that I genuinely enjoyed seeing as a man who loves men’s fashion and men’s-only brands were smaller, luxury brands that I’ve discovered through social media,” he said. “To get to this point where the public already supports and buys from them gives much more leverage going into talks with buyers; it’s a huge advantage in today’s retailing world that can make or break your chances of success.”

Among the OSU contingent were, from left, Sara Smee, Haley Price, Chrissy Walter, Riley Nelson, Megan Hiatt, Eliot Frack, Serena Tucker and John Conner.
Among the OSU contingent were, from left, Sara Smee, Haley Price, Chrissy Walter, Riley Nelson, Megan Hiatt, Eliot Frack, Serena Tucker and John Conner.
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Willener: Beavers among the best

Curt Willener.
Curt Willener.

The College of Business prepares people to measure up against the best, says Curt Willener, this year’s Distinguished Early Career Business Professional.

The Hillsboro resident should know. Three years after his OSU graduation, he was accepted into the MBA program at Harvard Business School.

“OSU was on my list, but since I’d gone there as an undergraduate, I wanted a new experience,” who at the time was working at a mill in Albany. “I had just gotten done with a super dusty, 14-hour shift when I talked to (Dean) Ilene (Kleinsorge) about going to graduate school. I think I got her office dirty. But she was so open to talking with me and supporting me, and Ilene wrote a recommendation letter that helped me get into Harvard.

“You’re always a little nervous with something like that, but Ilene said don’t worry, we prepared you, and she was absolutely right,” Willener said. “The top students at Oregon State can compete anywhere in the world against anyone.”

For Willener, now operations manager and Danaher Business System leader at Tektronix/Danaher, the route to OSU began on Sauvie Island, where from age 12 to 18 he worked at a local farm and kennel. After graduating from Scappoose High School, he followed in the footsteps of his OSU alum father, Henry, and headed to Corvallis.

Willener graduated in management and finance from OSU in 2004 and earned a place in a Weyerhaeuser program designed to develop new leaders. Within a few months he was the night-shift supervisor, winning over the older, more experienced workers by “treating them with respect and giving them a fair shake” and “approaching situations with humility and common sense.”

“Listening is a really big part of it,” he said. “People respect you for it.”

Willener will be honored May 11 in Portland at the college’s annual Celebration of Excellence, along with the rest of the 2015 award winners as well as the retiring Kleinsorge. For more on the event and the honorees, follow the College of Business blog as the countdown to the celebration continues over the next couple of weeks.

The evening begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner and the awards presentation. For more information or to register, contact Elsa Frey at elsa.frey@oregonstate.edu or call 541-737-6648, or register online at http://business.oregonstate.edu/awards.

 

 

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Alumni return for Career Symposium

Cameron Stanislowski picks up tips from OSU alum Katie Barger, who works for Nike.
Cameron Stanislowski picks up tips from OSU alum Katie Barger, who works for Nike.

Representatives from more than 50 companies were at the CH2M HILL Alumni Center on Wednesday for the 29th annual Career Symposium for College of Business students majoring in interior design, graphic design, apparel design and merchandising management.

“It’s great to be involved with people in the industry, and it’s cool they brought it to us,” Hannah Bonilla said during a “life after graduation” networking session featuring Oregon State apparel design and merchandising management alumni who work for companies such as Aquent, Firebrand Sports, Gap and Macy’s.

“You hear what they do and think ‘Oh, I might want to do that too,’” said Makenzie Donnerberg, like Bonilla, a junior majoring in merchandising management.

Fred Meyer, Kohl’s, Nike and SmithCFI were the gold-level sponsors for the four-hour symposium, the theme of which was, “Yesterday’s Dream, Today’s Mission, Tomorrow’s Reality: Shaping the Future of Business & Design.”

Columbia Sportswear and Dream Careers were silver-level sponsors, and traditional-level sponsors included Accademia Italiana, Adidas, American Home & Stone, the American Society of Interior Designers, Buckle, Fine, Hanna Andersson, JanSport, Linn County, Lucy, The North Face, Pacific Furnishings and Pendleton Woolen Mills.

“It’s really fun to walk around and talk to people and see what they’re doing and figure out what I’ll actually do after graduation,” said John Conner, a senior in apparel design. “I’m interested in sportswear but am keeping everything open.”

Senior Cameron Stanislowski, who’s studying merchandising management, said his dream job would be to work in footwear design or footwear product development, ideally in the areas of cleated, training or basketball shoes.

“It’s so useful to have your past classmates come back and talk to you,” he said. “You can network and really find the heart of what you’re into as you prepare to make that transition from graduation into the possible industries you might be in.”

More than 390 students attended.

Claire Rose, an OSU grad working for Macy's, talks to students at the symposium.
Claire Rose, an OSU grad working for Macy’s, talks to students at the symposium.