I will never forget meeting Dean Jack Britain for the first time. The Christensen building had just been completed as I was working on my MBA. As we began using the new building I noticed sponsorship and donor boards going up recognizing those who financially enabled this wonderful new building to be realized. I also couldn’t help but notice that the font and color of the labels for the donors was very similar to that of the stickers my startup had just created. Being the opportunistic gorilla marketing minded student I was, I thought it would be clever to simply add my sticker to the list of $10,000 donors.

Two months later I was invited to meet with the dean. He was very kid and gracious in asking if he could get payment for my donation. When I finally realized what he was taking about I was a bit embarrassed but was not made to feel so by Jack. I was able to quickly remove the sticker, but committed to some day contribute at least that to the U.

Since then I have not yet had an exit large enough to enable that kind of donation, but have been teaching as an adjunct professor for three years and hope that fulfills some of my obligation while I work hard to create an opportunity to donate that and more.