14 Under 40

Enterprising young alumni are standouts in business and marketing arenas

by Sherri Kimmel

October 1, 2010

Nathan ’04 and Allie Baumler Buchman ’05

What can you do with a liberal-arts degree? Plenty and in areas far, far afield from one’s major. In the following series of 14 short profiles, we highlight a French major who’s developed financial products, a married couple who’ve leveraged their international business & management and American studies degrees to found a company that may be the largest bead retailer in the United States, a geology major whose Colorado company does high-end plaster work and much more.

While some of these folks may be described as traditional business-startup entrepreneurs, others may be best described as “intrapreneurs”—entrepreneurs within a company or institutional framework. With so many worthy candidates to consider for this special feature, how did we settle on these finalists?

We asked three distinguished faculty members to comb through a long list of names and settle on the top 14. Read on to see who Wendy Moffat, professor of English; Jim Hoefler, professor of political science; and Helen Takacs, assistant professor of international business & management, found to be innovators of interest. Our 14 featured entrepreneurial enterprises start with the most recent graduates and work back to the oldest, who turned 40 after he was selected. Together, their work illustrates a very Dickinsonian use of a liberal-arts education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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