Challenge - Spring/Summer 2012 - Tiffin University

Graduates Challenged:
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams
and live the life you have imagined!
6 | SPRING / SUMMER 2012 | CHALLENGE
Tiffin University celebrated the
he worked in the Pentagon as Aide to the
opening of the new Heminger Center
Chief of the Naval Reserve. He earned a
on Saturday, May 5 with more than
bachelor’s degree from the University of
3,000 guests on hand to recognize
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA
700 plus graduates, representing both
from Harvard University. The speaker is
undergraduate and graduate students,
also an author and a noted photographer.
during its 124th Annual Commencement.
His portfolio includes photographs from
The Heminger Center, named for
unusual locations like Antarctica, Everest,
Gary and Jane Heminger, was the site of
Papua New Guinea, and at the edge of
an historic occasion for the university. Previously,
the ceremonies were held in the
During his speech, Michel encour-
space (aboard a U-2 Spy Plane).
Gillmor Student Center, but because of
aged the new TU graduates to become
TU’s extraordinary growth in recent years,
risk-takers, and not to be afraid to fail
the new facility with its expanded space
along the way. “Fear is the silent enemy
Christopher Michel
offered the graduates, their families, and
of the extraordinary. We live in a world where
special guests a day to remember.
people, especially the most brilliant among
Entrepreneur and investor, Christopher Michel, delivered us, go to remarkable lengths not to fail,” he said. “We’re
the keynote address. “I am absolutely thrilled to be here taught to mitigate disappointment by playing by the rules, lowering
our expectations, and fitting in, and, the true cost of that
today, at this great university in this fabulous new building,”
Michel remarked. “It’s a moment I won’t ever forget.”
‘highly reasonable’ approach is nothing short of breathtaking.”
Michel’s message to the graduates was what he called
Michel used his own background to demonstrate the
the secret to great achievement.
need for risk-taking and also the need to resist fear of failure.
“Confidence and ethics are everything,” he said. “Not
Near the end of his enlistment in the Navy, Michel was
your resume, not who you know, not where you live – not encouraged by a shipmate to enroll in Harvard Business
even your IQ. Sure, those things are important, but what is School. “I was a 29 year old Navy vet from rural Illinois. And
more important is having the confidence to passionately pursue
our highest calling. Probably no one articulated this idea The vast majority of my class was Ivy League graduates who
from the moment I showed up, I knew I was in serious trouble.
better than Henry David Thoreau. He encouraged each of us had worked on Wall Street. They had lived and breathed
to ‘go confidently in the direction of our dreams – and to live business, and were on campus playing to win. If that wasn’t
the life we have imagined.’”
bad enough, the school had a forced bell grading curve. My
Michel’s business acumen has been widely noted. He is classmates seemed so much smarter and more sophisticated
one of three individuals featured in the book by Bill Murphy than me – and they probably were.”
entitled The Intelligent Entrepreneur: How Three Harvard
But one day, he said, a guest speaker changed his way of
Business School Graduates Learned the 10 Rules of Successful
Entrepreneurship (Henry Holt, 2010).
was a bearded, shaggy-haired guy whose first words were,
thinking, and indeed, his future. “Standing before us that day
He currently heads Nautilus Ventures, a seed venture ‘I’m an entrepreneur.’”
fund. Prior to Nautilus, he founded Military.com in 1999,
The speaker was Dan Bricklin, who had been a student
which is an online portal for service members, veterans and in the late 1970s at Harvard. During first-year accounting,
their families. In 2007, he created Affinity Labs, which runs a he had an epiphany, imagining a better way to manipulate
portfolio of online professional communities.
numbers using digital rows and columns on a PC.
Prior to his business career, Michel served as a naval
“Dan literally created the spreadsheet, the predecessor
flight officer in the U.S. Navy. While on active duty, he flew of today’s Excel,” Michel said. “Dan’s product, Visicalc, was
as a navigator, tactical coordinator and mission commander one of the most important software applications in the history
of personal computing. It was one if the main aboard the P-3C Orion aircraft. Following his operational tour,
reasons