A TRANSFORMATIVE GIFT

Photos: Digital renderings of the Walter P. Brown Center for Sales Excellence, which is scheduled to be complete in Fall 2022.

Since joining the College of Business family, Dean and Michael C. Ruettgers Professor of Marketing Dr. Shane Hunt has worked hard to bring a new sales program to the College. The initiative began with a Professional Sales Certificate open to any student on campus and backed by a board of outstanding sales professionals. Since then, the sales program at Idaho State University has taken off.

Earlier this year, the College of Business received an incredibly generous gift from 1964 marketing graduate Michael C. Ruettgers. This gift will make a number of transformative changes to the College, one of which has the greatest impact on the new sales program.

Thanks to the Michael C. Ruettgers Endowment, the College of Business is undergoing construction on the new Walter P. Brown Center for Sales Excellence. Located on the second floor of the Business Administration building, this new space will provide students and sales professionals alike with a worldclass facility. “The space is designed to provide students and sales professionals an area to develop their sales skills, enhance their personal brand, as well as construct, practice and train for individual and team sales presentations, interviews and proposals,” said Hunt. The Center will serve as a base for the College’s sales program.

“This gift is the final cog in the wheel,” said Don Zebe, College of Business Sales Advisory Board Chairman. “It acts as the catalyst that will provide our students with the needed technology and training facility that will give them the competitive advantage when entering the field of professional selling.”

Ruettgers said he chose to link his gift to the sales program because of the impact the field has had on his career. “Much of my success came from companies that used direct sales as the keystone for their go-tomarket strategy,” he said. “So I appreciate how important direct selling and the management of direct sales forces is.”

After graduating from Idaho State, Ruettgers earned his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and went on to become a distinguished Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the storage and software company EMC Corporation (now part of Dell). While in this position, Ruettgers was named one of the “Top 25 Best CEOs in the World” by Business Week magazine in the late 1990s for his work in pulling EMC out of near bankruptcy. This feat earned EMC recognition as “America’s Most Admired Company” by Fortune magazine in 2000.

“I expect this program to produce the sales management professionals of the future.” Ruettgers said that he hopes graduates of Idaho State’s sales program will be in high-demand in the technology industry.

Although this gift is part of the Michael C. Ruettgers Endowment, he chose to name it after his good friend Walter. “I consider Walter Brown to be the leader in professional sales management training for enterprise sales,” said Ruettgers. “He helped me build EMC Corporation into the recognized world-leader in direct selling to enterprises. His influence continues to be felt today in the technology industry through ‘graduates’ of the company he consulted with.”

Ruettgers noted that throughout his career and success, the College of Business has remained a North Star for him: “it helped me focus on my career and life goals.” He said this gift is meant as one way to honor that legacy and the impact his education at the College of Business has had on his life.

“All of us in the Idaho State University College of Business are very thankful for Mike Ruettgers, whose extraordinary support has made the Walter P. Brown Center for Sales Excellence possible for generations of students to come,” said Hunt.

Let’s talk sales

Last March, the Walter P. Brown Center for Sales Excellence launched a new radio show airing on KISU FM 91. “Sales Talk” is the College of Business’s third show and is hosted by Marketing Professor and Executive Director of the Center John Ney. “The purpose of the show is to help create awareness and understanding of sales and sales skills,” said Ney. “Sales is the lifeblood of any successful organization. However, few people have ever recieved any professional sales training.” The show airs on the last Monday of every month at 7:30 PM and is also available online: kisu.org/podcast/sales-talk