DEDIC ATION
PERSEVERANCE, PERSISTENCE, AND PROFIT BY EMMA W R I GHT ('2 0) ROCKY WILKERSON GRADUATED from Southern Nazarene University in 2012 with a degree in organizational leadership and a hunger for success. Beginning in 2015 with a small business consisting of one office and two employees, Rocky is now nationally recognized as the founder of 2020’s third fastest growing company in Oklahoma and one of Inc. 5000’s fastest growing companies. While Wilkerson has found success after obtaining both a bachelor’s and, in 2015, master’s degree from SNU, he admits that school was challenging for him, having to persevere through an extended schooling process, saying, “My mom has always been educationally focused, but for me, I was a little late to that game… But I ended up at SNU because of Character, Culture, Christ.”
Persisting through his undergraduate degree, Wilkerson anticipated immediate success after graduation: “I got my bachelor’s degree, moved to Tulsa, and thought I was going to conquer the world with a bachelor’s degree. Little did I know that you usually start off only making $35-40,000 a year with a bachelor’s degree!” With a sales personality, prior sales experience and a drive to create something on his own, Wilkerson entered SNU Tulsa's MBA program where he began developing his business model. “The master’s program, for me, gave me the financial and accounting knowledge to be comfortable within the business,” Wilkerson explained. “With my bachelor’s degree, I had the organizational leadership, but I didn’t have the financial component to run
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SNU MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021
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