Features

> It’s good to work for an organization, but even better to create one.

Many young college graduates seek careers with big companies, thinking that size and stability go hand-in-hand—and not minding the prestige of a well-recognized organization, either.

Goergen believes these assumptions are often misguided.

“Large corporations don’t create jobs,” he says. “Large corporations eliminate jobs.”

Early in his career, Goergen left the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. It was a prestigious firm to work for, and its clients were major corporations. But he preferred small companies, and preferably ones in which he could hold a financial stake. He took a job with a venture capital firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette instead, and found his calling in identifying promising, but poorly run, small enterprises, which he could reorganize and build.

Goergen was among the first people to suggest that academic institutions could play a strategic role in fostering business creation. In 1997, he went to his graduate alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, and offered to endow a program in entrepreneurialism. For a school renowned for training generations of Fortune 500 leadership, the proposal was an unusual one. But Goergen’s offer was accepted, and since then, the Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program has grown to offer more than 20 courses to about 2,000 students at any given time.

At Rochester, Goergen’s desire to foster business creation inspired him to contribute a lead gift for the creation of the Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics. The building was designed as shared space for the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Institute for Optics to foster collaborations. It significantly increased available lab space and added demonstration rooms as well as a Center for Institute Ventures that puts faculty in contact with sources of venture capital.

> The STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math—are essential for the country’s success. But these careers aren’t for everybody, and that’s OK.

Goergen studied physics at Rochester, graduating with honors. And to this day, he credits his study of physics with giving him “skills and discipline” that he’s applied to his business career. Yet he acknowledges that STEM isn’t for everybody, and his investment decisions demonstrate that there are plenty of opportunities for individuals outside those fields.

For example, his greatest business success is not in any high-tech enterprise, but in one of the oldest and lowest-tech industries around: candles. In the late 1970s, Goergen put $25,000 into a small, regional candle manufacturer based in Brooklyn. It was what’s called a “hobby investment”—one he pursued on his own, because it was too small to interest his private equity group. Through acquisitions and the development of new products, such as fragrance candles and an array of home décor products, he built the company, which he renamed Blyth Inc., into an international firm that surpassed $1 billion in annual sales in 2000. It took innovation, to be sure, but innovation in management and organization more than in science and technology. And because Blyth’s products are distributed through direct sales, it’s given thousands of individuals a chance to earn extra cash and test their mettle running their own small enterprises.

> Live by the words meliora, kaizen, and omphaloskepsis.

Goergen says he has encountered three words—one in Latin, another in Japanese, and a third in Greek—that sum up his approach to work and life.

Goergen and those closest to him say he can’t sit still. So it’s not surprising that the University’s motto Meliora—the Latin word that translates as “ever better”—would resonate with him. As much a concept as a word, it implies resistance to self-satisfaction. “Meliora means never being satisfied,” he says. “Whatever you’re doing, there’s always an opportunity to improve.”

Many entrepreneurs have big plans, but some can stumble when it comes to carrying them out. Entrepreneurs see themselves as bold, but caution is part of the mix as well. That’s where kaizen comes in. A concept Goergen encountered when he was reading about Japanese approaches to management, it means thoughtful, gradual change—or, says Goergen, when it comes to expansion, “Do it in steps you can manage. Don’t jump so far that you have to fall back.”

And there’s a time for reevaluation, too. Omphaloskepsis, Goergen says, “basically means, looking inward, seeing where your navel is taking you. And saying, is my navel taking me in the direction I want to go, or do I have to do something to improve my position in life?”