Spartan Profiles: John Bamberger
HEAD OF PANURGY
Right after MSU, he went out west to fight fires with the National Forest Service. Today John Bamberger, is facing a different kind of fire. As president of Panurgy, a company with 30 offices, 1,100 employees and annual sales nearing $180 million, he's helping businesses with their ever-growing computer network integration needs.
After two years, Bamberger left the U.S. Forest Service, returned to Michigan and excelled in sales at Pitney Bowes and later Unisys. In 1990, he founded Sequoia Diversified Products, a one-man company in his basement. But in a few years, annual sales zoomed from zero to $100 million. He was named 'Microsoft Partner of the Year' in 1998 and Ernst & Young's 'Michigan Entrepreneur of the Year' in 1999. In March, SDP merged with IT Technologies to form Panurgy, specialists in e-commerce and computer-network and computer-application development.
'I learned that you cannot put out forest fires completely, you can only hope to contain them,' explains John. 'This theory also applies in business. You can't always extinguish problems, but you can look for ways to make the best out of any given situation.'
He says that 'Panurgy' in Greek means 'ready to do anything,' now his company's formula for success.
John flies a Spartan flag in his Auburn Hills headquarters and has surrounded himself with many key Spartans, including partner Al Wise, '77, MBA '79, Sequoia CEO Bill Murray, '78, vice president of software development Ray Green, '77, and Sequoia sales manager Mike Finkenstaedt. 'MSU was wonderful,' he recalls. 'I loved the camaderie of the forestry majors. We were a little club within a large university.'
Recently John and partner Al established MSU's 'Sequoia Scholarship'--a full, four-year scholarship for an incoming freshman from the Upper Peninsula. 'MSU was a maturing experience for me,' he notes. 'It forced me to do well academically, especially in natural sciences.'