Covering the Bases Blending principles from baseball and philosophy, Jim Stameson builds a lasting legacy
Baseball is used often enough as a metaphor in business: the sales team knocks it out of the park (or strikes out) at a client presentation, the project manager on a successful product launch names the lead developer her MVP, the CEO steps in as the closer on an important negotiation. American business is steeped in America’s game, perhaps nowhere more deliberately or to greater effect than at Plasma Ruggedized Solutions (PRS), a leading provider of coating and related specialty engineering services co-founded by CEO and former Husky outfielder Jim Stameson (BA 1981). “Baseball was the reason for coming to UW,” says Stameson, but his experiences as a student athlete taught him a bit more about dealing with adversity than about hitting and fielding. Stameson credits that experience with helping him to develop the discipline, maturity, and endurance it takes to build a successful career and to run an industry-leading company. “Baseball instilled in me so many of my basic values,
like perseverance, especially when dealing with difficult times and facing challenges.” According to Stameson, athletic training and the extraordinary hours he put in developing his skills helped him learn to focus on developing good ideas and practices from the foundation up and gave him the confidence to take on leadership roles and do some intelligent risk-taking. “I’ve felt comfortable taking calculated risks along the way,” he says. After a short minor league career with both the Mariners and Giants organizations, Stameson started his business career working for large firms such as Hughes Aircraft, Parker Hannifin, and Vickers, a course he recommends for new graduates. “Working for larger firms, you get a chance to learn a great deal about people and about communication,” Stameson says. “You can take those lessons and apply them later if you decide to build something of your own.” And that is exactly what Stameson eventually did, building over time the “All
compounds, a hallmark of environmentally friendly “green” operations. That commitment to environmental stewardship is just one way in which Stameson applies a business philosophy rooted firmly in ethics and still informed by some of the lessons he took away from his classes with faculty like David Hart, winner of the UW Distinguished Teaching Award in 1974, who taught business ethics at Foster from 1968 to 1983. As a student in Hart’s undergraduate Business, Government and Society course, Stameson learned to tie the other disciplines of his business education together. “Dr. Hart made it about what you’re supposed to be as a person,“ Stameson says. “It was about learning how 20 or 30 years from now, you will want to be remembered not so much for what you have done, but for what you have left behind.” Hart’s message resonated with Stameson, a student of the classics who has consistently applied ethical and long-range thinking to the progress of his
“In the end, the only thing you leave the world with is what you stood for. That’s the importance of making a mark and finishing well.” Star” team of people who comprise the management of PRS, a world-class engineering and manufacturing company that provides services and products to virtually every industry that requires electrical and mechanical systems to operate in harsh or challenging environments. With locations in San Jose and Huntington Beach, PRS occupies more than 35,000 square feet of manufacturing space and consistently applies practices and chemistries that produce very low output of volatile organic
career, the development of his company and his responsibility to his people and his customers. Stameson shares his philosophy readily. He currently mentors a physics major from Stanford and recently hosted a group of Foster MBA students during a tour of his San Jose facility. “In the end, the only thing you leave the world with is what you stood for,” Stameson says. “That’s the importance of making a mark and finishing well.” n
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