Today we wanted to take a moment and recognize some of the great work produced or honored just this past academic term and highlight the amazing faculty we have at the College of Business. Below is a selection of the work that has been published or accepted for publication over the past few months.

• Management Instructor Jennifer Mower and School of Design  and Human Environment Associate Professor Elaine Pedersen’s paper “Pretty and Patriotic; Women’s Consumption of Apparel During World War II” was accepted in Dress. The Dress is a scholarly, refereed publication dedicated to issues related to the cultural/historical aspects of dress. It is considered one of the premiere academic journals in the area of dress.
• Pedersen and SDHE Professor Leslie Burns paper “Apparel design research: Involving undergraduate students.” Was accepted in The International Journal of Design Education. The Journal is one of six thematically focused journals in the family of journals that support the Design Principles and Practices knowledge community. The journal explores aspects of learning to become a designer and to develop modes of “design thinking.” It examines pedagogies of engagement with design purposes, designed objects, and design.
• Pedersen and three graduate students from the School of Design and Human Environment had their paper “An Exploration of Design Students’ Inspiration Process” accepted in College Student Journal. College Student Journal is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes original investigations and theoretical papers dealing with college student values, attitudes, opinions, and learning.
• Pedersen’s “Comparing words with works: A study of Pugin’s St. Augustine’s church” was accepted in Journal of Interior Design. The Journal of Interior Design is a scholarly, refereed publication dedicated to issues related to the design of the interior environment. It is considered one of the premier scholarly interior design journals.
• Assistant Professor of Marketing Colleen Bee’s manuscript “Consumer Uncertainty: The Influence of Anticipatory Emotions on Ambivalence, Attitudes, and Intentions” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Consumer Behavior (JCB). Published by Wiley, JCB aims to promote the understanding of consumer behavior, consumer research and consumption through the publication of double-blind peer-reviewed, top quality theoretical and empirical research.
• Global Business Analysis Assistant Professor Inara Scott’s “Dancing Backward in High Heels: Examining and Addressing the Disparate Regulatory Treatment of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Resources”  was accepted in Environmental Law Review. Published by the Lewis & Clark Law School, Environmental Law Review is the nation’s oldest law review dedicated solely to environmental issues.
• Also Scott’s paper “Creating a 21st Century Public Utility Commission” won the Best Paper Award at the 2013 Western Academy of Legal Studies in Business (WALSB) annual conference.
• Strategy and Entrepreneurship Assistant Professor Bobby Garrett and co-author Dan Holland’s paper “Entrepreneurs’ start-up decisions versus persistence decisions: A look at expectancy and value” was accepted in International Small Business Journal (ISBJ).  Published by Sage, ISBJ  publishes the highest quality original research papers on small business and entrepreneurship.
• SDHE Associate Professor Seunghae Lee’s paper “Wayfinding Aids for Older Adults” was published in the International Journal of Design in Society, one of six thematically focused journals in the family of journals that support the Design Principles and Practices knowledge community. The journal traverses a broad sweep to construct a trans-disciplinary dialogue that encompasses the perspectives and practices of various design disciplines.
• Finance Associate Professor Jimmy Yang’s article “The choice between rights and underwritten equity offerings: Evidence from Chinese stock markets” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Multinational Financial Management (JMFM).  Published by Elsevier, this journal’s aim is to publish rigorous, original articles dealing with the management of the multinational enterprise.
• Marketing Assistant Professor Marina Puzakova’s paper “The Connubial Relationship between Market Orientation and Entrepreneurial Orientation” was accepted in Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice (JMTP).  Published by M. E. Sharpe (in conjunction with the Society for Marketing Advances), JMTP was created in 1993 to provide an outlet for quality scholarly research across a broad range of marketing subjects – with the important caveat that tying the work to managerial application is essential for publication.
• SDHE Associate Dean Minjeong Kim received the L. L Stewart Scholars Award, recognizing outstanding faculty at Oregon State University and providing resources to stimulate creative advancements in teaching, research, and extended education.  The theme of the award is to support creativity and innovation among the university’s top scholars and is supported by an endowment established by L.L. Stewart. This award provides $30,000 in financial support for faculty selected as a Stewart Scholar.

Ok so we think this thing hovering over the field is a camera … But it could be a drone. instagram.com/p/XkwNd6u1Zq/

— Lindsay Schnell (@LindsayRae19) April 1, 2013

There is a flying machine over practice. What is going on?

— Cliff Kirkpatrick (@CliffGT) April 1, 2013

A strange object appeared this year at the first day of the Oregon State University spring football practice. Or more accurately, it appeared above it.

For the first time, the Beavers used an aerial camera to document its practices. The person responsible for the copter was Oregon State sophomore Michael Williams, part of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program in the College of Business.

Williams said he’d always been interested in creating his own flying machines, starting with radio-controlled airplanes.

“Throughout middle school and high school I kept building bigger stuff,” said Williams. “Right around when I came to college I got involved with multicopters.”

Multicopters, so named for the multiple blades configured around the copter body, have become popular over the past few years as a way to do aerial photography.

When Williams started, the technology he had access to wasn’t advanced enough to lift a high quality camera, but advances in both photography and flight since then have made it possible.

Last year he started tests with a small camera, and immediately got a huge reaction from friends.

“It was an instant success,” he said. “Eventually my friends would say, ‘Oh, you’re the multicopter kid.’”

Williams started Multicopter Northwest, selling kits so others could build their own copters. But a chance meeting sent the project in another direction.

Originally an engineering major, this fall Williams transferred to business on a friend’s recommendation and got involved with the Austin Entrepreneurship Program. From there he also joined the Weatherford Garage, which provides resources to help students start their own businesses.

“This past fall I fell into the hands of Sandy Neubaum, [Weatherford GTA] Dale McCauley and Bob Mayes,” Williams said. “It transformed from selling a couple of kits to friends to something bigger.”

During the fall Oregon State head football coach Mike Riley spoke at an entrepreneurship class and Mayes, a former Oregon State quarterback, pushed Williams to approach and share his business plan.

It turned out the Riley was looking for a better way to get photos and videos of offensive lineman, often packed too close together to see well from the sidelines.

“I got the opportunity to do a mini pitch and he was instantly interested,” Williams said. “He invited me to come to spring practices and do some demos.”

Williams showed up on day one and went to work. The system records video but also sends it to a video unit on the ground, so coaches can watch in real-time.

The next step for Williams is getting funding for better equipment while continuing to develop the business.

No matter where the idea takes him, so far he’s happy with the decision to jump into his own business.

“I walked into Weatherford [Hall] not knowing what to expect,” Williams said. “Now I spend hours on hours in that building.

The easiest way to measure Carmen Steggell’s impact on Oregon State is the number of stories there are to tell about how she has helped and inspired others.

As the colleagues, friends and current and former students stood up to talk and share their appreciation of Steggell Friday at the Hawthorne Suite at Milam Hall, that impact seemed to grow larger and larger.

This year Steggell, School of Design and Human Environment Associate Professor & Graduate Program Coordinator, is retiring after 14 years at OSU.

From current Professor and former SDHE Associate Dean Leslie Burns’ story of Steggell filing in for her while Burns took a sabbatical to the numerous students who mentioned how her classes inspired them to continue in design, there was no shortage of remembrances of how Steggell made an impact at OSU.

Steggell served as Program Leader for the Housing Studies Program and as Core Director for “Gerontechnologies” in OSU’s Center for Healthy Aging Research. Her research has focused on the interactions between human behavior and seniors’ residential environments, with an emphasis on supportive technologies for aging in place.

Her undergraduate teaching included light frame construction, kitchen and bath design, housing policy, housing for the aging and real estate finance. Steggell is also the author of educational materials used extensively by affordable housing providers across the nation, including “The ABCs of Homebuying,” “The ABCs of Community Land Trusts” and “Ready to Rent.”

School of Design and Human Environment Scholar Awards

Apparel Design

• Erin Cahill
• Jamie Cheung
• Thea Matos
• Belinda Ng

Graphic Design

• Brittany Albertson
• Hanna Durighello
• Mattea Godsey
• Richard Hibbert
• Layla Hubbard

Interior Design

• Jenna Von Delyn
• Rebecca Janssen
• Ji Hye Kim
• Bonnie Skolfield 

Merchandising Management

•  Misha Anders
• Jenna Halberg
• Courtney Meyer
• Emma Sackett

All-Star

• Casey Anderson
• Haley Lillybridge
• Darlene Veenhuizen 

Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant

• Hanna Durighello

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant

• Alexandra Howell

Outstanding Graduate Research Award

• Sarah Song

Undergraduate Research/Creative Activity Awards

• Olivia Hier
• Layla Hubbard
• Randi Ponce
• Silia Sequeira

Scholarships

Cecelia T. Shuttleworth Scholarship

• Katherine Barger
• Laura Bass
• Zach Eidsroog
• Sarah Kasiah
• Brooke Modrell Charles
• John Squire
• Rhett Ybarra

Harold W. Parker Memorial Scholarship

• Liezl Dygart
• Kaixin Liang

Gladys Whipple Goode Memorial Scholarship

• Melissa Blanchard
• Justine Ekman
• Haley Lorenzen
• Chase Myatt

Ruth Beckwith Memorial Scholarship

• Erin Bernot
• Ruby Canchola S
• tefanie Hunt
• Kaycee Pershing
• Jessi Pettibone

Dorothy Schilling Memorial Scholarship

• Molly Ross
• Casey Stannard

Zehntbauer Family Foundation Scholarship

• Ishmael Guervara
• Mallory Trost

Caughey Scholarship

• Alyssa Johnson
• Sara Smee

Granite-Meyer Award for Housing Research

• Alana Pulay

SDHE Chair’s Excellence Scholarship

• Marie Eberwein
• Sarah Montague

College of Business Dean’s Scholarship

• Kelly Baker
• Rya Elms-Giudici
• Sarah Hall
• Sarah Jamieson
• Megan Mueller

With the opening of Austin Hall in 2014, the Austin Family Business Program is taking the opportunity to honor one of the pioneers of family business at Oregon State.

For years, the advisory board of the Austin Family Business Program had wanted to find a way to honor the program’s founder, Pat Frishkoff.

Frishkoff worked to start the program in 1985, at a time when there was little emphasis on family business in universities. After retiring from OSU in 2002, she continued to help families through her Leadership in Family Enterprise organization.

“What she put together was the beginning of family business education,” AFBP Director Sherri Noxel said. “The only other program that existed was at Wharton, and that was very different, more consulting focused. Pat was able to develop family business education integrated into an existing college of business.”

The perfect opportunity finally presented itself with the construction of Austin Hall, the new home for the College of Business. The new building is named for Ken and Joan Austin, who provided a $10 million gift for the project and also supported Frishkoff’s efforts in 1985.

Austin Hall means a new home for AFBP as well, including a new director’s office. With that opportunity presented, a group of anonymous donors stepped forward to name the office in Frishkoff’s honor.

“That reflects the community we’ve built, with not just one but multiple people stepping up,” Noxel said. “I just couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to honor her than to have a space dedicated to future directors.”

The honor was announced April 19, the same day as the construction launch for Austin Hall, at a gathering at the current AFBP space in Strand Agriculture Hall.

The honor was kept secret from Frishkoff until Noxel raised a toast and presented her with a bouquet of roses.

“Her husband [Paul Frishkoff] was in on it,” Noxel said. “Only later I learned he can’t keep a secret. [Pat] said at the end of the day, ‘You mean Paul knew?’”

Every day a host of great ideas swirl around college campuses.

While many become research papers, inventions or other innovative creations, there’s a major push now to also find some to become products, startups and companies that can help the economy and create jobs.

Oregon State recently launched its own initiative, the OSU Advantage, which includes a Venture Accelerator to help find OSU research and technologies that are possible candidates for commercialization.

That process of finding ways to partner universities and industry is the focus of the upcoming Oregon CEO Summit, May 7 at the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront.

Giving the keynote will be SIGA Chief Scientific Officer Dennis Hruby, who brings an impressive breadth of experience to the discussion.

Hruby received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Colorado Medical Center and holds an undergraduate degree in Microbiology from Oregon State University.

A specialist in poxviruses, virology and anti-infective research, Hruby spent more than 25 years as a faculty member and other positions with Oregon State University. He’s worked with SIGA since 1996 in a variety of roles including senior scientific advisor, Vice President of Research and now as CSO.

SIGA works to create products for the prevention and treatment of serious infectious diseases, including those that may be used as biological weapons.

With its corporate headquarters in New York, SIGA decided to keep its research and development labs in Corvallis in part because of the access to the facilities, technology and expertise at Oregon State.

That has helped SIGA develop innovative solutions and grow profits, which benefits the company, the university and Oregon’s economy.

Hruby will discuss the genesis of one recent project, and how the partnership between SIGA and Oregon State helped the company produce an effective treatment for a deadly disease.

The Summit will also feature a panel discussion with Oregon leaders in technology and education on the importance of industry partnerships with universities. Panelists include:

• Ryan Kirkpatrick, chief executive officer, Shwood, Ltd.
• Mark Lieberman, chief startup officer and co-director, Office of Commercialization and Development and Oregon State Venture Accelerator
• John Turner, co-director, Oregon State Venture Accelerator
• Tim Weber, vice president and general manager, Printing Technology Development Operation, Hewlett Packard

Mary Coucher, vice president of IP engineering, operations and geography licensing for IBM Corporation, will serve as the moderator for the discussion.

For more information and to register, go to http://business.oregonstate.edu/CEOSummit

Friday afternoon, with a late bit of sun peaking through after early morning clouds, the Oregon State University College of Business community took a moment to celebrate the construction launch of Austin Hall, the new home for the College of Business that will open in Fall 2014.

That community included not just current students and faculty but alumni, friends, family and those invested in Oregon and its continued economic growth – and it was a capacity crowd with more than 300 people in attendance.

“The dream and this journey to Austin Hall has been a vision of so many alumni and donors for many years and I have had the privilege of carrying this dream and sharing the story of the College, of Bexell Hall, of the people and the programs,” College of Business Dean Ilene Kleinsorge told the crowd assembled on 26^th Street to see the official launch.

The lead gifts came from two storied OSU families, those of Ken and Joan Austin and the Al and Pat Reser. Together they pledged a combined $16 million — $10 from the Austin’s themselves — to kick off the campaign.

Then Friday Kleinsorge announced that 1965 College of Business graduate and E*TRADE co-founder Bernie Newcomb raised his already substantial gift of $250,000 to $1 million, becoming the sixth to pledge at least $1 million.

Newcomb has been a strong supporter of the College of Business for many years.

Friday Newcomb’s partner Gerry Marshall was in attendance at the construction launch. She also took time to visit with COB faculty and staff picked as Newcomb Fellows and the students supported by the Newcomb Family Scholarship.

Newcomb’s gift pushed the campaign past its original $30 million philanthropic goal, a major milestone as the campaign continues toward the Fall 2014 completion of Austin Hall.

Throughout the afternoon different members of community took turns to share their thanks and what the new building will mean to them.

Oregon State University President Ed Ray addressed the gathering, and noted that while many buildings at OSU have names on them, Austin Hall will be a fitting tribute for a great OSU family.

“I can’t think of a name other than Austin we could be prouder of being on this building,” Ray said.

College of Business student Connor Deeks shared testimonials from his fellow students, from bringing together students, alumni and faculty into a single space to the creation of a landmark students could point to as a point of pride.

“Austin Hall will propel students to achieve their highest potential,” Deeks said. “I take great honor in saying thank you.”

Representing the state of Oregon, state Treasuer Ted Wheeler pointed out that while Austin Hall was a great moment for OSU, it would pay dividends for the entire state economy by helping to better prepare graduates to contribute in the workforce.

“[Austin Hall] is the kind of thing we need to invest in now to continue the economic development of our state,” Wheeler said.

You can continue to follow the progress of Austin Hall by going to business.oregonstate.edu and clicking on the live webcam, where you can watch the construction as it happens

What do you say? Well, after watching the 11^th annual Oregon State MBA Business Plan Competition Thursday night, here are some possible strategies:

• Go right into the pitch, and wow them with your market research.

• Take a quick phone call on a successful test of your product.

• Start with an icebreaker, such as “Hey, my power was out last night, how about yours?” or “There’s a gas station down the street. The pump has one slot for your credit card and one for your 401K.”

• Oh, and whatever you chose from above, don’t forget a business card.

Each year the Oregon State MBA Integrated Business Project teams take a real-world technology and spend nine months developing a commercialization plan around it, whether that’s a new company, product, licensing agreement or other plan.

The Business Plan Competition gives the teams a chance to present those plans in front of not only their teachers, advisors and other business professionals but the friends and family members who have watched the entire journey.

Thursday’s competition included a five-minute “Shark Tank”-style pitch to introduce the teams and technologies and the Elevator Pitch, which gave a team member 45 seconds to wow a potential investor.

Each team took a different approach, trying to get the investor’s attention while showing the best their business plan had to offer.

In the end the team of Eric Revell, Bi Tran, Raymond McGuinness, Edward Brown and Kelong Kim took first place for their presentation, including the Elevator Pitch from Brown.

In second was Yi Zhuang, josh McBee, Amanda Williams, Adam Welch and Sarah Che. Third place went to Chalo Masias, Ryan Meyer , Jenny Cheung and Michael Knapp.

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 12^th 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.

“I couldn’t find a paper for the life of me,” said Gilardi, co-president of the Oregon State Marketing Club. “I got one the next day and took two or three copies. It made my day.”

The text told Gilardi that Marketing Club was picked as one of the top-3 student organizations at OSU in the Barometer’s 2013 Best-Of issue.

“We figured there are around 250 groups,” Gilardi said. “So to be in the top three in the whole of OSU, that’s amazing.”

The club’s award wasn’t the only College of Business connection, with Weatherford Hall winning for best residence hall and for Bing’s Cafe, which was named best place to eat on campus.

Karissa Moore, co-president of the club with Gilardi, said the honor validated the hard work they and all the members have put into the club.

“We put so much time into providing students with opportunities for now and in the future and to me, getting on the Barometer best-of list was the students’ way of saying  ‘Thank You,‘” Moore said. “I feel like a proud parent.”

The section was organized by another college of business student, Nathan Bauer, who serves as the Barometer’s business manager.

Bauer said the section, in its second year, helps the paper connect with students and local businesses in a different way from its everyday offerings.

“We realized it’s something that people enjoy, and it’s all about staying relevant to the community,” Bauer said. “We’re adding value to the paper to keep people reading.”

Bauer and his team organized the all-online survey, which drew more than 1,000 responses. After tabulating the results, they contacted businesses and organizations to write profiles of the winners.

“That issue was really driven by the business side,” Bauer said. “We were the ones who got the photographers, wrote the articles.

“Getting something to go to press takes a lot,” he said. “That was the biggest eye-opener.”

That commitment meant Bauer and the rest of the staff was still putting the finishing touches on the section late into the evening.

“One sales rep and I, we were there until 1 a.m., finishing everything,” Bauer said. “I have a lot more respect the writers and editors now.”

Students had a chance to talk about projects, commiserate on the challenges of the term and just hang out and connect for a while outside of the confines of Bexell Hall (thought you’ll notice a few with papers still available).

Also, congratulations to all our students who are graduating this term. One in particular announced his end of college with authority (literally), and we gave a shout-out to him on our COB Facebook page.

Looking back more than 10 years after her business received an Excellence in Family Business Award, Lori Luchak can still remember the feeling of the ceremony.

Luchak, President of Miles Fiberglass & Composites, said being named a Family Business of the Year by the Austin Family Business program in 1999 not only gave her sense of validation for her family’s hard work, but a chance to reflect.

“The Austin Family Business Award allowed our family to celebrate the joy of being a family business and forget about the hard work of balancing family and business for one special night,” Luchak said.

Fruithill, Inc., started in 1919 in Yamhill, Ore. The farm grows cherries, plums, hazelnuts, wine grapes and other crops, and last year was named the Small Family Business of the Year.

Linda Schrepel, a member of Fruithill’s third-generation, said participating in the awards helped the family connect with the history of the business and the family.

“I like that in a way we were forced to put together our family history because now it is together,” she said. “The history is down and it’s there for generations to read.”

The program is currently accepting nominations for the 2013 Excellence in Family Business Awards.  To nominate a business, fill out the online form, or visit the Excellence in Family Business Awards website for more information.

Deadline for nominations is April 1. Businesses may still apply for the awards without being nominated before May 1.

Now in their 25^th year, the awards honor innovative family businesses from around the Northwest who demonstrate innovation, entrepreneurship and a commitment to community involvement.

More than 180 companies have been honored in this peer-reviewed competition since the awards were first presented in 1988.

Oregon State senior Xandra Jobe is pretty clear when it comes to how much she got out of her experience with the MECOP internship program.

“It’s probably the single most valuable thing I’ve done as an undergrad,” Jobe said.

MECOP places students in two paid, six-month internships, each with a different company. The program is currently accepting applications for its 2014 program, with a deadline of April 10.

Jobe is planning to graduate from Oregon State spring term and interned with Intel in the summer and fall.

A marketing major, Jobe worked with Intel’s Client Board division and helped to head up the department’s social media efforts along with fellow College of Business student and MECOP intern Rachel Sauter.

The pair helped coordinate, produce and publish social media posts for the group, researching and developing strategies that could provide a tangible return on investment for Intel.

“I was the one who updated it and helped decide what the key messages were that needed to go out,” she said. “Just the variety and magnitude of the things I was given to do went way beyond what I expected.”

Sauter, a Business Mangement major, also worked on data anlysis reports for the department and helped troubleshoot a new website before launch.

“Being a part of launching a product was really fun,” Sauter said. “It was such a broad range of experiences, I was able to apply all my knowledge from school and from working in my family business.”

Jobe said the experience gave her not only real-life job experience but also a group of mentors who are already helping her shape her next steps after graduation.

“I can’t even really put into words all the things I got out of it,” she said. “My idea of what a job is and what a career could look like has developed immensely. I have resume items that are competitive with other people. I’m not going into the workforce blind.”

Sauter, graduating this spring, already feels like she’ll be a better employee because of her internships through MECOP.

“The references I have now, I could get four or five good references from managers at Intel,” Sauter said. “This has been such a key part of my education, I can’t imagine graduating without it.”

Trevor Husseman, an accounting and business information systems major, spent this past summer with Daimler Trucks North America in Portland.

There he worked on an internal application repository system to track the applications Daimler employees used, and helped integrate that with a system Daimler’s international operation was expanding.

“It keeps track of applications created within Daimler that people use on the shop floor, on their computers that we created,” Husseman said. “I worked with one of the engineers and actually implemented it into production.”

The opportunity to push something into the company workflow motivated Husseman, giving him a taste of what his career could be like after graduation.

“I learned to step up my work and my work ethic,” he said. “This is real life. This is going into production so it has to be perfect.”

This summer he’ll participate in his second internship, this time with Garmin in Salem.

Husseman said he already feels better prepared for starting his job search once he leaves Oregon State.

“It prepares you so much for your first real job, it’s invaluable,” he said. “You’re a year ahead of everyone else that’s starting.”

Looking back at his experience and ahead to his joining the workforce, he can’t imagine entering without his time with MECOP.

“I get a year of experience and two six-months of awesome pay, but really the work experience was worth it,” he said. “I think MECOP is just phenomenal and anyone who doesn’t do it is crazy. How could you not in this day and age when it’s so competitive?”

“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.”

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.”

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. ”

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.

For Alex Polvi, entrepreneurship comes down to one simple phrase:

“Just go for it.”

That’s exactly what he and fellow Oregon State alumni Dan Di Spaltro and Logan Welliver did after graduating from OSU.

In 2008, the trio moved to Silicon Valley and created Cloudkick, a startup dedicated to helping customers better manage their cloud computing resources.

Exactly two years later they were finalizing the sale of the startup to Rackspace, the second-largest cloud-computing company in the world.

All three took a risk, driven by a desire to do something they loved with the skills they had acquired at OSU. Now, just more than five years removed from graduation, the group has cemented their reputations as innovative entrepreneurs.

The story of Cloudkick began before OSU, when Polvi and Welliver met growing up in McMinnville, Oregon.

At OSU Polvi studied computer science, where he met Di Spaltro, while Welliver pursued graphic design.

Polvi says working in the Open Source Lab at OSU gave him the skills he needed to land internships with Mozilla and Google and eventually his first job out of school.

After graduating, Di Paltro and Polvi moved to San Jose, California. A year out of school the pair decided to start a new venture, and Polvi called Welliver to join them.

“It sounded like a good opportunity, and I knew Alex well enough to trust his nose for business, so I flew down to San Jose to meet with him and Dan,” Welliver remembers. “After that meeting, I closed up shop in Portland and moved down to San Jose to give it a shot.”

Di Spaltro and Polvi created the technical aspects of the project while Welliver used his graphic design talents to make the final product visually appealing and intuitive for users.

After participating in the Y Combinator accelerator program in 2009, the company launched and started its ascent in the cloud-computing world.

Less than a year later the company had grown to 12 employees — including six OSU alumni.

In December of 2011, Rackspace acquired Cloudkick, capping an amazing journey for the startup and its three founders.

Looking back, Polvi says the group had its share of luck, but they made it possible by following their passions and starting something of their own.

“Just the fact that we started a company in the first place positioned us to have 20 times more luck than someone who didn’t,” Polvi said.

Welliver said his main piece of advice for students and young entrepreneurs is to start working on what they love now instead of waiting for more favorable conditions.

“If you’re truly passionate about something, start working on it today,” Welliver said. “I hear too many people endlessly pitching ideas instead of building them. Executing a poor idea has infinitely more value than postulating you have a great one.”

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.

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.