Utah Valley University is easier to work with than many other universities, and that’s why I got involved. When there are multiple layers of approval needed to make a gift, donors get tired of that. UVU provides me with quick access and fast answers, including being able to talk with the president. I appreciate that top leadership is more approachable than at other places. I like the wide, broad offerings into different certification programs, the engaged-learning approach to higher education, and open enrollment. I also have some family ties — my son is a professor, my daughter attended as a student, and I have a granddaughter attending currently.

Before I graduated from college, I was drafted in the Vietnam War. I spent the next three years in the Army, and the Army led me to be hired by the Deseret News, where I worked for four years as a reporter assigned to the Church News. The Deseret News led me to the opportunity to start a recruiting firm for 10 years, where companies paid me to find employees for them to hire. That recruiting firm led me to have a partner who was just starting out in the medical oxygen business. I was able to invest with him, and for seven years owned and helped grow that company in six states, providing oxygen to the elderly in their homes. We sold the oxygen business when we were living in Colorado, which allowed us to come to Utah when my wife was hired by BYU. Five years were spent at BYU as an entrepreneur in residence and teaching as a volunteer in the Marriott School. I was also an angel investor and started Utah Angels. We later moved to the Philippines and established the Academy for Creating Enterprise, which is a nonprofit that has been going for 20 years. Ten years were spent as full-time faculty at the BYU Marriott School. Ten years I was an owner and partner in four developments in Boise, Idaho, where I developed 660 housing lots for builders there. I’ve had quite the career.

During our 25 years in Provo, we’ve sponsored entrepreneur scholarships for students who are entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs. This year, we’ve started a public health campaign to educate hairdressers to spot suspicious lesions on the scalp of their customers and help recommend them to a dermatologist. This came about because a hairdresser spotted something on my head that led to a biopsy, and that led to a pretty significant surgery on my head because of melanoma cancer. I like to come up with an idea or see an idea and then build a program around it. I started this program with hairdressers at Southern Utah University, and then through working with several people and UVU located a group of five interns that are out educating hairdressers by the dozens every week. That's what I'm about.

Of my entire career, I am most proud of the establishment of the Academy for Creating Enterprise, which is now in eight countries. Over 17,000 college-aged or around college-aged people from third-world or developing countries have graduated from our program. We have taught them how to start and grow small businesses, and some of them aren't so small anymore. That has certainly been the most rewarding to Bette and me as individuals. Of all the companies started from the program — and there have been a lot — one that I’m most excited about is a birthing center that one of our graduates established on the island of Mindanao. She now has three branches, and she and her team help deliver babies in sanitary conditions at their birthing centers. In one month, they delivered 88 babies, all from women who would have probably delivered at home, under a tree, in a mud hut, or at another facility. It’s not the largest operation by any means, but it’s quite satisfying. This particular alum was going to leave the Philippines to work in Canada, and instead said, “Well, I hear that I can go to this academy for next to nothing, so I'll just go up there for a week vacation.” As a result of that, she found out that she could start a business doing something she loved. She ended up marrying another graduate. There have been at least 42 weddings that have come out of the academy. We quit counting weddings at the 10-year mark because we couldn't really keep up with it.

Years back, Bette and I were honored by the Woodbury School of Business for our work in the Philippines and other countries in 2014. It was an award lauding social entrepreneurship. We appreciated being honored, but we felt there were a lot of other great people that have been at it more intensely or for as long as we have. I thought, “Why don't we start an annual dinner?” We've been proud sponsors of that event for six years now. We've recently started honoring young people who have been doing social entrepreneurship at the same event. One young 14-year-old — but he started much earlier than that — runs a lemonade stand and raised $80,000 through his efforts for wheelchairs, and we wanted to honor those youth who are changing the world for good.  

Aside from our business interests, Bette and I enjoy traveling and cruising — especially on small ships in Europe and on transatlantic crossings. We enjoy reading, doing family history, being with our married children and their families, teaching on a college level, jigsaw puzzles, and eating out.

If I could offer any advice to students, it would be to build a network. Work on teams and in groups as much as possible. Go on non-religious internships unique to your major. Take classes where engaged learning is highly stressed. Get to know the professors personally. Realize that a college education is much more than just the classes or the GPA. Apply for and secure scholarships. Look for ways to stand out by being an officer in a group or in national competitions. Build a resume based on personal accomplishments. Also, get married while in college. A slogan that I’ve used for the last decade or two of my life is, “It's not the dollars you stack up, but the lives you lift up.” That will give you the most happiness in this life and in the life to come.