Today two College of Business alumni were officially recognized as up-and-coming business leaders at the Portland Business Journal‘s 40 Under 40 celebreation.
Lori Chamberlain, COO and senior VP for the Oregon Bankers Association, and Ryan Smith, CFO of Nike Golf, represented the Oregon State University COB at the awards luncheon in Portland. We congratulate both of them on their great careers so far and are excited to see where they go next.
To get to know a little more about Lori and Ryan, check out the videos the Portland Business Journal Produced to highlight each honoree.
To celebrate the 2013 Weatherford Awards, this week we’re profiling each of the honorees here at the College of Business blog. Today is Dr. Albert Starr. For more information about the awards and links to other honoree profiles as they’re posted, check out our introduction to the series.
Dr. Albert Starr, courtesy OHSU
While all innovators have pressure to succeed, few work with the possibility of actually saving a life with their inventions.
Those were the stakes for Dr. Albert Starr just more than 50 years ago as he and co-creator Miles Lowell Edwards developed the first artificial heart valve.
On September 21, 1960, Dr. Starr and his surgical team successfully implanted the first heart valve. Since the valve’s first use, heart valve replacement surgery has saved millions of lives, giving hope to those with heart disease.
“Up until that point those patients were doomed to progressively worse heart failure, medication and spiral toward death,” heart surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Swanson told the Portland Business Journal in 2000.
Today, life-saving heart valve replacement surgery is performed 300,000 times each year around the globe, with more than 90,000 of those operations taking place in the U.S.
“Valve replacement turned the corner of cardiac surgery enormously,” Dr. Starr said. “It was the first implantable life sustaining cardiac device. And before that we were nibbling around the outside of the heart but nothing was put inside. This was the first life sustaining device.”
Dr. Starr came to Oregon in 1958 after graduating from Columbia College (now Columbia Univeristy) in New York. Soon after Dr. Starr was approached by Edwards, a retiring mechanical engineer, about the possibility of creating an artificial heart.
Dr. Starr, seeing an entire heart as too much for their first attempt, suggested the smaller but still never-accomplished task of an artificial heart valve.
Just two years later, after an exhaustive testing and selection course, Dr. Starr performed the first of thousands of valve implantation surgeries.
“I’ve done 8,000-9,000 heart surgeries during my career,” Dr. Starr said. “Actually, at one time I had callouses on my fingers from handling instruments all of the time.”
That drive has kept Dr. Starr a pioneer in the field. In 2007 he was named a winner of the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.
Even today, 50 years after his initial breakthrough, Dr. Starr continues to push for innovations in treatment.
Recently he took on a new role at OHSU. A historic $125 million gift from Nike founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny established the OHSU Knight Cardiovascular Institute and Dr. Starr and Dr. Sanijiv Kaul were chosen to lead the Institute that will bring clinicians and researchers together to take lab discoveries and turn them into new treatments for heart disease.
Students talk to business representatives and alumni during a session at the SDHE Career Symposium.
Students of the School of Design and Human Environment got an opportunity to start building their future Thursday at the school’s annual Career Symposium.
Held at the CH2M Hill Alumni Center, the 27th annual event connected students with Oregon State alumni and representatives from industry leaders such as adidas, Columbia Sportswear, Nike and many more.
“As internship coordinator, this is when it all comes together, to see the students in action,” said Sandy Burnett, SDHE senior instructor and internship coordinator. “Almost every year you see students making those connections for internships.”
Titled “Envision Your Tomorrow,” this year’s symposium was also special as it was the first year the event was student-organized.
“This year we all agreed to give that project management experience to the students,” Burnett said.
OSU student Demarcus Gentle listens during a session at the SDHE Career Symposium.
College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge set the tone in her opening remarks, reminding students the work they put in that morning could have a major impact on their opportunities after graduation.
“Today is important for you and your future,” Kleinsorge said as she helped welcome students. “The career preparation you do as a student the netowrking and oportunites you create for yourself are a valuable part of the experiential learning that will help you establish your carrer. And I differentiate a job and a career.”
The event provided plenty of chances for students to connect with companies and alumni in a number of different ways. Students could find their favorite alumni or business in the main ballroom for networking or to talk job and internship opportunities, while side sessions allowed smaller groups to dive into topics such as branding and creating a professional identity.
In a session on starting your own business, Oregon State alumni Leanna Petrone, owner of Leanna NYC, and Jillian Rabe, owner of Jillian Rabe LLC, talked about their paths to entrepreneurship.
Petrone worked in the New York fashion industry for 12 years after graduating from OSU with a BS in Apparel Design and a minor in Merchandising Management before realizing her dream was to own her own business, like both her parents did. She said the process is more work than she imagined, but fulfilling in a way her previous jobs weren’t.
“Every day, week, month, year, I’m on,” Petrone said. “But every day I do what I love.”
Alumna and business owner Jillian Rabe speaks at a entrepreneurship talk at the SDHE Career Symposium.
Rabe — whose company produces fashion shows, video and photo shoots and other events and marketing services — graduated from OSU with a degree in speech communication an psychology. She quickly realized she had other interests, and eventually went into business for herself.
“No one is going to work as hard for you as you are,” Rabe said.
To celebrate the 2013 Weatherford Awards, this week we’re profiling each of the honorees here at the College of Business blog. Today is Experian LLC CEO Don Robert. For more information about the awards and links to other honoree profiles as they’re posted, check out our introduction to the series.
Experian, LLC, CEO Don Robert
Looking only at Don Robert’s title, one may not immediately think of entrepreneurship.
But as CEO of Experian, LLC, the world’s largest credit services company, Robert must constantly be on the lookout for the next great idea and foster an environment that encourages and rewards innovation.
“I really think that defines entrepreneurship, constantly having to make left-hand turns and constantly having to reinvent the plan as you go along,” Robert said.
A native Oregonian, Robert grew up in North Portland and attended Oregon State, where he earned a degree in business administration.
“I got a great business education at Oregon State and it stood me in good stead when I graduated and entered banking,” Robert said. “I had fantastic professors. Two or three who were particularly noteworthy, and I still think about and I still have their books on my bookshelf at home.”
Robert was also introduced to the idea of leadership at Oregon State thanks to his roommate, then-ASOSU President Jeff Strickler.
Strickler made sure Robert was involved and active, encouraging him to join the Memorial Union Program Council and other student activities.
“Jeff dragged me into a lot of activities on the periphery of student activities and student government and it was in those activities I became more comfortable with the idea of leadership,” Robert said.
From Oregon State Robert went straight into the business world, excelling at every step.
Starting at US Bancorp and then First American, Robert advanced to become a Group Executive.
In 2001 he joined Experian as Chief Operating Officer in North America, before becoming North American CEO and eventually Group CEO.
At each stop he worked hard to expand his skillset. Robert learned how to be an effective communicator, a strong leader and a pragmatic executive.
At Experian, Robert said one of his major goals as CEO is creating an environment that makes it possible to develop and support the ideas that become new Experian products.
“Institutional innovation and a big part of my job is to create a platform where we allow the best ideas to come forward, to be developed, to be bankrolled and put into the marketplace at a very rapid pace, because one of the primary growth vehicles we have in the company is bringing new products into the marketplace,” he said.
Robert said a major entrepreneurial challenge for Experian has been moving into new markets, such as India and Columbia. Both areas required new solutions and quick thinking to make the endeavors successful.
“We’ve had to create new products, throw away our original business plans,” Robert said. “We’ve had to raise financing locally. We’ve had to do things we didn’t anticipate.”
Robert’s advice for current students is to find something they’re passionate about, work harder than anyone else to get it, but not to be afraid to fail along the way.
“You never learn and you never grow when everything is going great,” he said. “It’s only during the tough times that you get stretched and that you develop as a person.”
To celebrate the 2013 Weatherford Awards, this week we’re profiling each of the honorees here at the College of Business blog. Today is former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts. For more information about the awards and links to other honoree profiles as they’re posted, check out our introduction to the series.
Former Gov. Barbara Roberts. Photo: Edmund Keene Photography
Barbara Roberts has never let convention get in the way of doing what she knew to be right.
As a young mother of an autistic son, Roberts began advocating for special needs children.
In 1984 she became Oregon’s first woman House majority leader, then in 1990 was elected as the state’s first and still only woman governor.
“It’s impossible to be a leader without being a risk-taker,” Roberts said. “You must take a risk to lead. You have to walk out on a limb to make the kind of changes to make you that leader.”
Roberts was born a fourth-generation Oregonian in Corvallis before moving to Sheridan. She graduated from Sheridan High School and then Portland State University.
Though Roberts never saw herself as a reformer, in 1971 she saw a need and began to fight for the rights of special needs children, inspired by her own son, Mike.
In her new role as a lobbyist, she spent four days a week at her job as a bookkeeper and one day at the capitol building in Salem.
In the next six months, she became an expected presence, talking to all 90 members of the Oregon legislature, telling her story and advocating for educational rights.
Roberts’ efforts helped Oregon make history, passing the first law in the nation requiring special education for children.
“Women have a tendency to be more collaborative leaders and it was that collaboration that allowed me to bring all kinds of people to the table,” Roberts said. “The table was full – out of that collaboration, we came up with a lot of innovations.”
From there Roberts become involved at every level of Oregon’s political landscape, serving on the Parkrose School Board, Multnomah County Commission and the Oregon House of Representatives.
In 1984 Roberts was elected Oregon Secretary of State, winning re-election in 1988.
Soon after, the Democratic candidacy for governor was open and, with this newfound confidence and understanding of herself, Roberts announced her campaign.
During her time in office, Roberts had a significant impact on the state – on the economy, on the people, in education and the environment.
Roberts initiated the “Conversation with Oregon,” a statewide project to meet with citizens and hear opinions on how the state should address issues with taxation and government spending. The Roberts administration is also a strong supporter of gay rights and appointed a number of women and minorities to positions in state government.
After her term as governor, Roberts served as Director of the State and Local Government Executive Programs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, as Associate Director of Leadership at Portland State University’s Hatfield School of Government and as a member of the Metro City Council in Portland.
“I like to look at the fact that I served in public office for more than thirty years and no one ever questioned my honesty and ethics,” Roberts said. “If I had to pick a thing that I am proud of, that would be it.”
For a career of service that always found new ways to bring people together for innovative solutions to the problems of government, Roberts is being honored as one of the 2013 Weatherford Award Winners.
“At first I was surprised to hear that I was getting this award,” Roberts said. “It became clear to me that there was more than one way to be innovative. ”
Oregon’s first woman governor. A groundbreaking heart surgeon. A dynamic chief executive. Innovative tech startup founders.
Over the next few days on the College of Business Blog we’ll introduce you to the honorees of the 2013 Weatherford Awards, which honor entrepreneurs and innovators who further Oregon’s pioneering spirit. As posts are added we’ll link to them below. This year the awards will recognize:
Each day we will profile a different honoree with a glimpse into how they changed the world by advancing entrepreneurship, innovation, and social progress.
If you’d like to join us to honor this distinguished group and their achievements, the awards take place Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013 at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower. Registration runs until Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. Click here to register.
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.
Willen Sin (left) and Lauren Hines (right) both studied abroad fall term.
Every international exchange experience is different.
Some students enter college waiting for the chance (“Back to freshman year I wanted to do study abroad”) and others more reluctantly (“I decided why not, I’ll travel”).
Some desire familiar aspects (“I wanted to understand [the language] the people in the country I was going to”) while others wanted something completely new (“To me, Europe was a little too westernized and didn’t give me a different enough experience”).
In the end, though, most find themselves changed after, with a new perspective not only on where they visited but their own culture, as well.
“When I went there I saw our culture,” said College of Business student Lyndsay Toll, who studied in Murcia, Spain. “Once you step out of it you see how everyone else views you. You see how you handle a situation different from the rest of society.”
Nearly 100 students took part in the Arthur Stonehill International Exchange Program last school year. The program allows College of Business Students to earn an option in International Business, which includes coursework at OSU before and after an international experience.
Toll said when she landed in Spain there was an initial anxiety as she got acclimated to her home for the next few months.
“I remember being in the airport and standing there, like what do I do now?” she said. “I called my landlord and could not understand him. It’s frightening. You’re in this whole other country, you have no idea where you are, bags and suitcases everywhere and you feel so vulnerable.”
She combatted that by immediately getting involved everywhere she could, meeting new people and finding opportunities to join in.
“I went to all the social events, played soccer, got a tutoring job teaching English,” Toll said. “I just tried to make connections with as many people as I could and adopt the culture and the language.”
Soccer became a common bond between Toll and fellow exchange students. A varsity player in high school and intramural player at OSU, Toll took every chance to join pick up games.
“My favorite parts were playing soccer everyday, and the culture around that was fun,” she said. “I’d always get asked that question. So you like soccer? Are you for Barcelona or Madrid? I’m impartial; I’m not from Spain.”
Exchange student Lyndsay Toll in Murcia, Spain
Willen Sin attended City University, the largest business school in Hong Kong, studying finance, Chinese business culture and other topics.
While he had also been looking forward to a study abroad experience, Sin didn’t know where he wanted to go until a conversation with his father.
“I talked with my father, and he encouraged me to go to Hong Kong,” Sin said. “One, it would strengthen my language and if I wanted an option to go somewhere to work, where would I want to go? Hong Kong topped both of those lists.”
Sin said it took a bit to get used to a more hands-off teaching style at the university, as well as the speed of living in a major city like Hong Kong.
“The Asian culture, even coming from an Asian family descent and growing up in that, it’s so much different then I could have imagined being there,” he said. “They can be very fast paced and slow paced at the same time.”
Lauren Hines came to OSU skeptical about a study abroad experience, but was eventually convinced by friends who had traveled themselves.
“It was kind of a spur of the moment thing,” Hines said. “It was hearing the stories of other students who’d gone.”
Hines had visited Italy in the past and so decided to go to Asia, eventually settling on Singapore.
At Singapore Management University Hines studied family business, international finance and other subjects.
A member and officer in a number of organizations at OSU, Hines found the exchange schedule freer.
“There’s meetings constantly and things to do here, but there it was kind of a clean slate,” she said. “I only had classes Monday and Tuesday.”
That gave Hines time to visit not only more of Singapore but also Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, meeting up with fellow OSU exchange students such as Sin.
The schedule gave her time to interact with a number of different people and cultures.
“I spent holidays with an Indian family in Singapore,” Hines said. “The locals would take us to eat or meet their friends.”
It also meant that often she stuck out as the American of the group.
“They say nobody but Americans say totally,” she said. “I don’t think I say it that much but I must. One time I dropped food somewhere and that was called very American.”
For all three, that added self-awareness was a key learning point in the trip.
“I learned that I am very small and that this world has so much to offer,” Sin said of his time in Hong Kong. “It challenges yourself to do better because you never know once you get out in the real market just how many people you’re competing against.”
Sin said the experience gave him not only a more global outlook in his thinking, but expanded his network of friends.
“Now if I go to Europe I know I have a place to stay in Austria, a place I can go to in Sweden or Thailand,” he said. “And opportunities may come from that.”
For Toll, living in Spain helped teach her to see problems and issues in a new way, something she thinks will help when she starts her career.
“The biggest lesson was just understanding that not everybody thinks the same,” Toll said. “Going in with an open mind and perspective and trying to be understanding. I think that’s an important lesson as we continue to become a more global economy.”
That self-discovery is something she didn’t expect, though looking back she said that’s the excitement of a study abroad experience.
“You never really know what you’re going to experience until you go out there and put your self in a position where you have to fend for yourself,” Toll said.
All three said they’d recommend the experience to any College of Business student, regardless of what he or she plans to do after graduating.
“I knew I’d like it, but it was a completely life changing experience,” Hines said.
Update, Jan. 24: We’ve added the video from the event at the end of the post.
Jon DeVaan said while he was working on the initial release of Excel, the current Microsoft corporate vice president didn’t know the program would become an omnipresent part of work life.
“The focus was ‘We think this will help people a lot, and everything will flow,’” DeVaan told the audience at Wednesday’s College of Business Dean’s Distinguished Lecture at the LaSells Stewart Center.
DeVaan has been at Microsoft since graduating from OSU in 1982, starting with his work on Excel and most recently helping to design the new Windows 8 operating system. DeVaan ran his presentation from a Microsoft Surface, the company’s new tablet computer.
The theme of the talk was how individuals and organizations must focus on improving, or risk falling behind by simply continuing to do what brought them success in the past.
In his own experience, DeVaan recounted how when he started with Excel, Lotus 1-2-3 was the dominant spreadsheet program. But while Lotus saw only a professional market for its product, Microsoft wanted to make a product that could be used by anyone.
“Our motto was a computer on every desk, in every home,” DeVaan said.
A quarter century later, that initial goal has helped make computing accessible for many more people than even DeVaan imagined at the time. He remembers sitting on a plane and being grabbed by the person next to him after mentioning he worked on Excel.
“He said he hated his boss, but he didn’t need him anymore because he had a PC and could start out on his own,” DeVaan remembered.
DeVaan counseled the audience to always confront hard truths and set aside time to fix them. To work smarter, not harder, which can be difficult when that sometimes hurts efficiency in the short term.
He noted that the initial release of Word, the popular text editor, was delayed for two years and Access, a database management program, was cancelled twice.
DeVaan said at Microsoft the company has built in time for “renewal activities,” reviewing how the company is working, not just what it’s producing.
“No one ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happen,” DeVaan said, borrowing a favorite quotation.
Instead, he pointed out “everything real has problems,” and the key to good leadership is knowing which problems have to be fixed and which are OK to live with, for now.
As long as you take time to focus on improving the process, and not just trying to fix every issue as it comes up, you’ll find things get better in the long run.
“You don’t know where new ideas will come from, but renewal activities create the space where that’s possible,” DeVaan said.
Jessica Kim introduces speakers Ken Saito, Jim Merryman and Jenny Billips of Oregon Freeze Dry
Entering the International Affairs Club’s event Wednesday night, featuring Oregon Freeze Dry President Jim Merryman, organizer Jessica Kim was keeping her expectations grounded.
“I said if we got 50 it’ll be a success,” Kim said of Merryman’s talk at the LaSells Stewart Center’s C & E hall. “It’s a cozy room.
“We ended up not having enough seats for everyone,” Kim said.
The event attracted more than 200 attendees in the first major event the club has held and first big talk Kim and fellow club member Riley Kinser have organized.
Kim said the idea came from a desire to do something different than the traditional student club guest speaker, but something smaller than the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series put on by the College of Business the pair had volunteered with earlier in the year.
“We decided [DDLs are] great, but we wanted something more intimate, less like a lecture, and more geared to stories and not just what their business is about,” she said. “Riley and I are finance majors so we hear that all the time.”
College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge introduced Merryman to Kim and Kinser last year, and the executive agreed to take part in an event. Kim said the group started preparing last spring, touring Oregon Freeze Dry in Albany, and kicked into high gear during fall term.
Kim said Merryman and Oregon Freeze Dry made a compelling invite because the company has needed to navigate the Great Recession while maintaining a global business, keeping their business moving in uncertain times both nationally and internationally.
“They’re a private company, so not a lot of the things they are in the media, and a lot has happened over the past 10 years, so we wanted to hear how they went through all the volatility in the market,” she said.
In the past few months Kim said the amount of work started to overwhelm her and Kinser, but a callout to club members over winter break and assistance from the Dean’s Student Leadership Council helped keep everything under control.
“It was fortunate for us that they stepped up,” Kim said.
The night of the event went smoothly, Kim said, the only issue a few spectators sitting in the aisle after all available seats filled up.
“Jim was a lot more relaxed, and very witty,” Kim said. “Lots and lots of stories. Because he got the audience so engaged, lots of people raised their hands.”
After her first major event Kim, said her advice for other student groups would be to just put as much work in as possible before the event but let go as the day came.
“Just put in all the effort you can until the day before, then forget about it,” Kim said. “If you’re stressed out, nothing gets done. Most of the time, if you put in a lot of work, things come through.”
