OWU Alumni Share Their Stories
Ohio Wesleyan alumni Dave Dickey (from left), David St. Pierre, and Scott Bellows shared their success stories recently during a networking event hosted by OWU’s Woltemade Center for Economics, Business, and Entrepreneurship. (Photo by Shane Wepprich ’12)
Ohio Wesleyan University seeks to help students find their passions and to provide the educational foundations they need to succeed in their chosen fields. For Scott Bellows ’98, the moment of inspiration is especially vivid.
“I went on vacation with my mother to Africa and when I got off the plane, a ray of sunshine beamed down onto giraffes, and I said to myself that I found my new home,” says Bellows, regional director of Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia for Kiva Microfunds.
During a recent visit to Ohio Wesleyan, Bellows presented an open lecture about microfinancing and later spoke to students at an invitation-only networking event hosted by OWU’s Woltemade Center for Economics, Business, and Entrepreneurship. The networking event was open to students majoring in economics, economics management, accounting, or international business. Students selected for the Woltemade Center’s competitive Economics Management Fellows Program also were invited.
In addition to Bellows, the event also included conversations with alumni Dave Dickey and David St. Pierre, both members of the OWU Class of 1990.
Dickey, co-founder of RedBrick Health, told students he believes in the liberal arts education and, because of Ohio Wesleyan, was able to start his own business.
“I believe I could have been doing what I am doing now right after OWU,” Dickey says.
St. Pierre, co-founder of Legacy Capital Partners and chair of the Woltemade Center Alumni Advisory Board, discussed how he had to make major decisions in his life before finding his true passion. St. Pierre also emphasized that no matter what people do, they must do it well.
“If you’re going to do good, make sure it makes money,” he says. “If you’re going make money, make sure you do some good.”
After hearing the presentations, current OWU students had a plethora of business-related questions as well as questions about how OWU had changed the speakers’ lives.
Thanks to this Woltemade Center event, OWU students are now better educated on what it takes to become successful and still follow their dreams.
OWU’s Woltemade Center, founded in 1985, helps students to integrate business theory and practice, provides scholarships and other resources, and sponsors lectures and additional events to benefit students and the regional business community.