IdeaAlumni Magazine of Northwood University | SPRING 2020 Seeding the Future Marketing Icon Leverages His Success To Expand Student Opportunities PAGE 4 Idea Contents | SPRING 2020 Stories 4 | Popcorn Pioneer Shakes Up Scholarship Endowment With $2.5 Million Donation to Northwood 8 | Dreams Do Come True For Northwood Athletes Who Have Gone on to Pro Careers 12 | Standing the Test of Time New Degree Program Demonstrates the Continuing Value of “The Northwood Idea” 14 | Winning Proposition Northwood Is the First University in Michigan to Offer an Esports Management Major 22 | In Memoriam: Northwood Mourns 4 the Passing of Impactful Individuals 24 | The Power of Philanthropy Is in Your Hands NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Spring content for IDEA magazine was created prior to when the COVID-19 pandemic began and the 500-year flood hit. Keep an eye out for the next edition which will be released in the fall and will 14 share stories of how the Northwood family adapted and united during this time. Stay safe and strong! 2 | NORTHWOOD IDEA MAGAZINE www.northwood.edu/idea Regular Features 19 | Family Album 26 | Faculty Briefs Be sure to check out the online edition at northwood.edu/idea. MISSION STATEMENT We develop the future leaders of a global, free- 8 12 enterprise society. PURPOSE STATEMENT To develop leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs with the character and skills to drive personal, organizational, and societal success. ON THE COVER: Lyttleton T. CORE VALUES STATEMENT Harris IV, center, poses with We believe in: Bob Love (’21), left, and Jack • The advantages of an Gertley (’20 and ’21), two of entrepreneurial, free- many Northwood students enterprise society who benefit from the • Individual freedom and endowed scholarship fund individual responsibility 24 that Harris supports. • Functioning from a foundation of ethics and integrity Northwood University is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination and equal • Promoting and leveraging opportunity for all persons regardless of the global, diverse, and race, gender, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, multi-cultural nature of disability or veteran status. The University enterprise also is committed to compliance with all applicable laws regarding nondiscrimination. Northwood University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (hlcommission. org), a regional accreditation agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. SPRING 2020 | 3 Popcorn Pioneer Shakes Up Scholarship Endowment With $2.5 Million Donation to Northwood Generations of future Northwood students will benefit from the generous nature of a man whose greatest claim to fame was helping make Orville Redenbacher a household name. Lyttleton T. Harris was born and raised in Louisiana, earning a bachelor’s degree at the University of Mississippi in 1962 and a master’s degree at Louisiana State. He quickly moved on to success in the business world, including a lead role in marketing the first disposable diapers to be sold in the United States. Then things really got popping. hile on a business trip to was as good as the people at the WChicago in the early 1970s, Harris store said it was. And the lab said, spent some time in the city’s yes, it is,” Harris recalled. “So we largest department store, where contacted Orville and told him, he noticed a display of mason jars ‘We’re the marketing experts. You’re filled with popcorn. Each jar sported the popcorn expert. Why don’t we a homemade label featuring a get together, and we’ll make you mimeographed photo of a quirky the Colonel Sanders of the popcorn looking man wearing a bow tie. market.’” When Harris asked store personnel about the product, he was told At the time, the idea of gourmet that the man on the label was a popcorn would have sounded just as popcorn geneticist named Orville strange to Americans as the name Redenbacher, who produced and Orville Redenbacher. packaged the popcorn himself and “Until then, popcorn had been sold resupplied the store from the trunk as a commodity. It was like beans of his car. and rice, sold in big bags. It wasn’t a “We bought a bunch of jars of the branded item,” Harris said. “People popcorn, sent it to our lab, and said it would never work, because we asked them to test it to see if it would have to sell it for twice the cost of the competition. But we tried it in three test markets, and it was a hit.” 4 | NORTHWOOD IDEA MAGAZINE www.northwood.edu/idea Northwood University President Dr. Kent MacDonald poses with Lyttleton “I can’t think of any other cause T. Harris IV, endowment donor, on the University’s campus in Midland, Michigan, that’s better than scholarships for on Nov. 7, 2019. deserving students.” - Lyttleton T. Harris IV SPRING 2020 | 5 6 | NORTHWOOD IDEA MAGAZINE www.northwood.edu/idea Harris instinctively knew that “She grew up poor near the man, Orville Redenbacher, Sweetwater, Oklahoma. She “This was the first time was the key to making Orville was the first person from Redenbacher popcorn a her family to go to college, I was able to talk with nationwide sensation. and she paid her own way through college by working Mr. Harris in person, and “He loved to be on camera. and obtaining scholarships,” hearing his story was just We had him doing TV Harris said. “She studied commercials, and I was behind economics, and she wanted incredible.” the camera for all of them,” to work in the investment Harris said. “I traveled all over field, but nobody would - Jack Gertley the country with him. We hire her because she was a (’20 B.B.A. and ’21 M.B.A.) booked him on all the local talk woman. One guy even told shows. Back then, each local her, and he would get fired market had its own afternoon for saying this today, ‘We November at the 26th Annual talk shows, and they were tried hiring a woman once, Private Donor Scholarship always looking for interesting and it didn’t work.’” Luncheon at the Hach Center. people to have on as guests.” So VanCaspel launched “This was the first time I was Soon, Orville Redenbacher her own company, which able to talk with Mr. Harris in was the world’s No. 1 popcorn, grew to become the largest person, and hearing his story and its creator became one private stock brokerage was just incredible,” said Jack of the most recognized faces firm in Texas. She was the Gertley (’20 B.B.A. and ’21 in America. For many years, first female member of the M.B.A.), one of the recipients. even as he moved on to other Pacific Stock Exchange, “It was great to be able to products, Harris stayed friends wrote six books on investing, pick his brain about some with Redenbacher, who passed and hosted the weekly PBS of the things I’m doing. His away in 1995 at the age of 88. television program “The passion for Northwood is just A TRUE LOVE STORY Money Makers.” wonderful.” Harris’s greatest discovery, In 1986, VanCaspel was Harris has made it clear that however, came in 1984 at an honored as a Northwood his support for Northwood is art gallery in Houston, Texas. University Distinguished steadfast. At the luncheon, That’s where Harris met Venita Woman. That began a Northwood Vice President Walker VanCaspel, a fellow relationship with Northwood of Advancement and Alumni art collector and successful that led to her serving for Relations Justin Marshall investment advisor. The mutual five years on the University’s announced that Harris attraction they felt that day Board of Trustees. Later, designated $2.5 million of eventually led them to the Harris also served on the his estate to the University’s altar, and they were married Board. scholarship endowment for 24 years until she passed program. GENEROSITY away in 2011. To this day, Harris “Generosity matters,” is inspired by Venita’s lifelong MATTERS Harris said during brief determination to make a In 2005, inspired by the role remarks at the luncheon. difference in the world. that scholarships played “Those of us who have been in VanCaspel’s success, fortunate enough to have an Lyttleton T. Harris IV, she and Harris launched accumulation of assets over endowment donor, poses with the Venita and Lyttleton T. the years, it’s our duty to scholarship recipients Jack Harris Northwood University make sure that those assets Gertley (’20 and ’21), left, and Endowed Scholarship, which are spent wisely, invested Bob Love (’21) at the Northwood provides annual support wisely, and spent on good University 26th Annual Private to multiple Northwood causes. I can’t think of any Donor Scholarship Luncheon students. Harris was able other cause that’s better than on Nov. 7, 2019, inside the to meet the scholarship’s scholarships for deserving Hach Center on the University’s campus in Midland, Michigan. current recipients in students.” SPRING 2020 | 7 Dreams/ Dedrick Roper (’10) rushes the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles during a National Football League game. Roper played 14 games for the Eagles in 2005 and 2006. Roper played his final two collegiate seasons at Northwood after transferring from Michigan State. Dedrick Roper gets in on a gang tackle during his playing days with Northwood. 8 | NORTHWOOD IDEA MAGAZINE www.northwood.edu/idea DO COME TRUE / Dreams For Northwood Athletes Who Have Gone Pro Few people would dispute the for three months, prompting notion that professional sports is, doctors to tell him he’d never “The highlight of my first and foremost, a business. play football again. He worked his way back into fitness by his career was being part of a And nobody knows business like sophomore year of high school, playoff run and NFC East Northwood University.