Crossroads - Spring 2013 - Alumni Magazine of Eastern Mennonite University

building shareholder value, since we're department of Elam G Stoltzfus Jr Inc. (Tanzania) and Asia (Bangladesh) on acnot pressured to deliver quarterly perforwhere he carried 4×8 sheets of plywood counting, microfinance, and job-creation mance on the stock market.” on a framing crew the first day and projects for several church-affiliated Longenecker’s father ran a small retail huddled over a drafting table the next. organizations. Along the way, in 1991, he store near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Though Dula is now one of five ofearned a master’s degree in economic when he was growing up – which is ficers in the company’s leadership team, development. where he got his foundational lessons in he stressed: “Titles mean nothing to us.

After his return to the United States, how to approach work, treat employees, Our founder never liked them, nor do Martin discovered a fellow graduate from and make decisions with integrity. The I, nor the rest of the senior management his era, Josephine Histand ’81, who had question, “Why do we do what we do?” staff. Titles merely identify our structure gone on to get an MBA and to work for was always in the air. And the answer to those outside of the organization. the Ford Motor Company. “It was an was not simply: “We do it for the bottom “We believe in a flat non-hierarchical online match. We overlapped a couple of line.” structure, which empowers persons to years at EMU – I avoided the library and In Leola, Pennsylvania, THOMAS unleash their own entrepreneurial spirit she lived in the library, so we didn’t meet VERGHESE ’71 runs his own insurance at all levels of the operation.” then,” he says with amusement in his and financial services firm (with the help Dula focused his MEDA talk on the voice. The two married in 2001, and she of assistant Rebecca Bucher ’86). Verquestion of who we are as human beings, now works as an environmental engineer ghese took the unusual step of topping rather than what we do, though naturally consultant. off an MBA earned at James Madison “My philosophy has always been that University in 1974 with a year back at his I feel best when I am where God wants “Business is simply a way of undergraduate alma mater, studying at me to be,” he says. “The common thread Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS). [for all of his jobs] is that I was working producing and distributing the “Faith and values are paramount in for the church. I have liked whatever things we need. Making a profit my dealings with my clients. My training setting I was in. I am not looking to be a is a means to that end. at EMC, the year at EMS, my church CEO of a non-profit. My first priority is As a stockholder, I want my (Forest Hills Mennonite), and the faith to be of service to the church.” community that I am a part of have pro- companies to do well financially, Today he is director of finance for vided me with a sound foundation upon Franconia Mennonite Conference, but I also want them to which to live and work.” handling a budget of approaching $1 milcontribute to the social good.”

Specifically, as an “independent lion annually. He and Josephine attend —Spencer Cowles, business & economics chair agent” who can pick and choose among Blooming Glen Mennonite Church. products offered by various companies, Like Conrad Martin, JOHN HESSVerghese says he takes care to “make sure YODER ’74 spent a chunk of his young that the recommendations I make to my we manifest our true selves through our adult years living and working in foreign prospects and clients are in their best inwork. locales – two years in Laos and three terests in terms of suitability, cost, quality “Like many people in business, I live years in Brazil under Mennonite Central of the product, as well as timing.” in a world of doing, producing, conCommittee. He then pastored a MenANDREW “ANDY” DULA ’91 is the structing, expanding and sometimes just nonite church in Oregon for three years CFO/COO of EG Stoltzfus, a consurviving,” he said. “We are often judged before deciding to enter the financial struction company based in Lancaster, by financial metrics and measurable planning arena.

Pennsylvania, with 25 subsidiary comparesults, as in, ‘What have you done for Hess-Yoder is a Certified Financial nies. He is also chair of EMU’s board of me lately?’

Planner, plus he holds a law degree trustees, a volunteer position.

“In the larger scheme of things, howearned through night school. The CFP is In a 2010 speech to the MEDA ever, a more important question is, ‘Who not a one-shot deal, Hess-Yoder explains. chapter in Lancaster, Dula spoke of his am I becoming?’”

“You have to do special ethical training life journey, starting with his birth in For Dula, what truly counts are the per year and you have to sign ethical Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His parents are of “stories of making just choices, going the guidelines. You can be censured by them mixed race and nationality of birth, faextra mile, treating employees as partners, [the Organization of Financial Planners, ther being brown Ethiopian and mother emphasizing our interconnectedness which confers the CFP] for quite a few being white American. Their marriage instead of untamed individualism, and things that regulators cannot get you for.” in the Mennonite Church of Ethiopia practicing moderation instead of excess,” If Hess-Yoder were a customer seeking was “no small feat in the ’60s,” Dula said adding that these “are part of who I am a financial planner, he says one of his wryly in his talk, which is posted on the becoming, rather than anything I am first questions would be, “How indepenEMU website. doing.” dent are you?” He would not be comfortDula traced his post-collegiate journey C. CONRAD MARTIN ’80 returned able with planners who receive comthrough a short-lived family restaurant to his home state of Pennsylvania in 2001 missions or extra compensation based venture to the drafting and design after spending 12 years working in Africa on promoting certain funds, including 48 | crossroads | spring 2013