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Summer 2024

WSM Spring 2011

Spring 2011

Learn and use

Most days, Bryan Saftler ’08 looked much like any other student, shuttling between classes in Todd Hall, taking notes, water bottle close at hand. But away from campus, the outgoing Seattle native was a budding businessman, supplying his Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and the rest of the WSU Greek system with custom apparel, everything from triple-thread-count lettered sweatshirts to weekly date dash tee-shirts. His company, Free Inke, set up operations in the basement of Saftler’s house on Campus Street; he and his partners worked before class, after class, and in-between to fill the ever-growing number of orders.

Despite his local success, Saftler knew he had … » More …

Spring 2011

Digging the new EcoWell

Students and faculty develop a mighty thirst after working out at WSU’s Student Recreation Center, and now they have a new, healthy, and environmentally friendly option to quench it.

The EcoWell vending machine’s slick iPhone-like touchscreen lets users choose their water (purified, carbonated, or hot), add any percentage and mix of juices, and include energy supplements if desired. But thirsty patrons better have their own bottles. An EcoWell machine only dispenses drinks, not disposable containers.

EcoWell grew from the minds and efforts of Reid Schilperoort ’10, Brian Boler ’09, and Andy Whitaker ’09, now at MIT graduate school, when they were students in the … » More …

Spring 2011

About the cover: Hinoki House by Michael Mathers

<em>WSM</em> Spring 2011 magazine cover
 

Architect Rex Hohlbein ’81 sits with clients Jim and Ann in an open sliding window of their home in Clyde Hill, Washington. The Hinoki House, a new view home in Bellevue’s 1950s Clyde Hill neighborhood, is exemplary of what has become known as “Northwest style.”

A hallmark of the house is walls made out of windows which lets in light and views of the trees, pond, and courtyard. In the living room, where the windows slide away, it opens … » More …

Spring 2011

Gary Brinson ’68—Investing in the world

As businesses became more international and markets around the world grew increasingly interconnected over the last three decades, a forward-thinking investor could succeed with a global portfolio. Gary Brinson was one of the earliest of those investors.

He recognized in the 1970s that the markets outside the United States were not, as conventional wisdom dictated, excessively risky. In the right balance, he reasoned, they could actually lead to greater diversification and solid returns.

Brinson ’68 received the University’s highest honor last fall, the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award, because of his achievements in institutional investing and his pioneering approach to global … » More …

Spring 2011

Video: Gary Brinson’s advice for investors in the 2010s

Gary P. Brinson, nationally recognized investment fund manager and 1968 graduate of Washington State University, gives advice to investors and consumers in the 2010s. He describes the downturn in the economy and possible solutions for people who want to save and weather the storm.

Brinson managed a record trillion dollars in investments in the late ’90s, earned the highest honor of the Chartered Financial Analysts Institute (an award given to such notables as Warren Buffett), and is a lifetime member of the Horatio Alger Association. WSU honored Brinson with the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award in fall 2010.

Spring 2011

Real investments return real experience

Stock symbols and percentages march across a long ticker screen, but it’s not a Wall Street brokerage firm. It’s the fourth floor of Todd Hall at WSU, and the eyes monitoring the stock market belong to undergraduates managing the Cougar Investment Fund.

The students invest $1 million of the university’s endowment—the Cougar Investment Fund—in a large capitalization equity portfolio. Under the supervision of Rick Sias, WSU finance professor and Gary P. Brinson Chair of Investment Management, the class has outperformed the S&P 500 since 2001.

Sias approached the WSU Foundation and suggested the program in 2000. “We wouldn’t charge any … » More …

Spring 2011

New threats, new science

Sure, Darwin had to battle seasickness aboard the HMS Beagle, and he spent nearly five years getting to and from the Galapagos Islands, and it took another 23 years to incorporate his findings into his seminal work on evolutionary biology.

But at least he lived in a slow-motion world of ship travel and isolated, slowly evolving species. Today, a scientist, or an exotic parasite for that matter, can get from London to the Galapagos in 24 hours. The parasite can start changing the biology of a place almost overnight. The scientist will have trouble keeping up.

Jeb Owen has seen as much, not by … » More …

Bob Brumblay (left) and Dave Fitzsimmons holding works by Griffin
Spring 2011

An art history

Worth D. Griffin stepped off the train in Pullman in the fall of 1924 to find Washington State College’s art department barely four years old and with just one other full-time faculty member. Prior to that, the only art instruction offered was painting lessons for students with the pocket money.

But Griffin had come to help teach design and creative composition and build a program. The Indiana native had studied commercial and fine art in Indianapolis and at the Art Institute in Chicago. In addition to working as a magazine illustrator, he trained among American realists, artists focused on rendering unidealized scenes of daily life. … » More …