Launched last year as part of the UO's diversity initiative, the Building Business Leaders project welcomes its second group of incoming students. Catch up with the first cohort in this video. Competing in the elite Venture Labs Investment Competition (formerly Moot Corp.), UO start-up teams won honors in their respective tracks: Sonas for Best Written Plan and Best Presentation, and VisiRay for Best Written Plan.
It was a match made in start-up heaven. Doug Anderson, MBA '11, and Paul Clark, MBA '11, were looking for a real-life project to apply the skills they'd honed in the business school's venture launch pathway. UO architecture professor Ihab Elzeyadi was looking for a way to commercialize the SolarStream Awning, an innovative three-in-one green building product he had recently developed.
"Nobody ever told me I couldn't do something, and as a result I tried all sorts of things" said Carolyn Chambers '53, the trailblazing entrepreneur who died on Monday, August 8. Chambers's entrepreneurial spirit blossomed while she was still in her twenties, when she borrowed $100,000 from her father, pooled that with funds from other investors, and applied for an FCC license. Her request was granted and KEZI went on the air in 1960. This was just the start for Chambers, whose vision and drive propelled her into cable television, construction, and the wine industry, among other ventures.
The first-ever official reception for the UO Accounting Alumni Network took place in the UO Portland White Stag building in June. The event brought together Portland-area grads from a wide range of eras: "We had a fellow who graduated in 1957, and then somebody who graduated last year, and everything in between," recalled accounting instructor Michele Henney, one the event's organizers and the department's external relations manager.
"I don't think I would be as successful at running if I didn't try to focus on academics as well," said Jordan Hasay, the UO student who was recently named Academic All-American of the Year for women's track and field/cross country. Hasay--who recently switched her major to pre-business--is the third-ever UO student to have received this recognition, joining runner Galen Rupp and former quarterback Bill Musgrave. (For the record, Rupp and Musgrave were also Lundquist College students.) She is also the first-ever sophomore to have received this honor in any sport.
Can solving social and environmental problems be part and parcel of a competitive investment strategy? The answer is yes, according to advocates of impact investing, a strategy that's recently gained attention even from mainstream financial institutions. For five Fridays this spring, MBA candidates explored this question in depth, in a new class led by industry expert Dave Chen, a principal at the Equilibrium Capital Group.
