Circling Back

Bert Vermeulen

It has been about thirty-seven years since our MBA orientation and thirty-five years since graduation. Much has happened, but some things have not changed.

I still own and wear the Icelandic wool sweater my mother knitted that is shown in my yearbook photo. When I see my classmates in that yearbook, it reminds me of things we did and how we did them.

For example, during the quarter before graduation, Alan DeClerck and I did a market analysis on writable optical disk drives, which did not exist at the time and are now obsolete. Our advisor was Professor Steven Wheelwright and our client was a venture capital firm in Colorado. We had an 11 a.m. appointment with a company in Newport Beach in Orange County, so we left Palo Alto at 4 a.m., drove through the night, showered on the beach and still managed to look professional. Our roles in the meeting were clear. Alan could talk his way into any company and start the discussion. When that got deep into technology, it was my job to dig us out. We did this many times; I still use it as an example of effective teamwork.

Then there was the backpacking trip to Hetch Hetchy with Steve Oliva, Mike McTeigue, and Deb Henken. Before heading into the wilderness, we received detailed instructions for keeping our food safe from bears at night. There were plenty of fresh bear droppings along their way. After much discussion and effort that evening, we had our food hung on a high branch, just the way the ranger had told us. Unfortunately, the bear must have observed how we had tied the rope and within a half hour, he had eaten everything. We might have thought we were smart, but the bear was smarter.

I also remember a ski weekend over New Year’s with Robert Patterson, Hugh Mackworth, Jeff Walters, and Alan DeClerck when we made phone calls from a payphone using Alan’s phone account at General Motors. That was the trip when I learned agency theory from Robert Patterson while riding the chair lift. I still associate agency theory with riding on chair lifts.

There was also the trip to the East Coast to put together a business plan for a previous employer. On the flight, we lugged a twenty-pound “portable” computer, and Bob Crane and I were so enthused about this entrepreneurial project that another passenger asked us to quiet down so he could relax.

I am still in entrepreneurship class every spring, but now I teach the subject. I still relish that youthful enthusiasm for business. It is the spirit that drives my part-time enterprise: designing and selling folding touring bikes. I hope that I can impart my students with the wisdom that I have learned in the last thirty-seven years.