A catalyst comes home

It was an invitation out of the blue to speak at a chemistry department alumni panel during Homecoming 2012 that caught veteran entrepreneur and venture capitalist Rick Kushel’s (‘87) attention. “I thought they had the wrong guy,” he said, since he had abandoned his career as a scientist shortly after graduating from JMU with a chemistry degree 25 years earlier. “I spent like six months in a lab testing cosmetics for Revlon and figured out that it wasn’t for me.” When he informed the event organizers that he was not working as a chemist, he was delighted by the response. “It was refreshing. They wanted me to speak anyway to send the message to students that just because you have a science degree doesn’t necessarily mean you will end up behind a bench your entire career.”

Kushel accepted the invitation and his expectations were knocked out of the park. “You know, I wasn’t very connected to JMU at the time. And I’d never done anything like that. It was a pretty full auditorium and I wasn’t sure how it was going to go.” Of course, as a successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Kushel was accustomed to walking into rooms not certain how it was going to go.

“What got me was after I was done, there were like 30 students in line to ask me questions. Whatever I said really meant something to them. They really listened to me and asked legitimate questions. So that was it for me. I caught the bug.”

From there, Kushel got deeply involved in innovation and entrepreneurship efforts at JMU, initially investing in James Madison Innovations Inc., a JMU nonprofit corporation for intellectual property management and licensing aimed at connecting researchers, entrepreneurs and professionals in industry. And then with the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship Venture Accelerator, creating a seed fund to support budding student entrepreneurs. And most recently, adding to the endowed fund supporting the Rainey-Shepard Business Plan Competition in the College of Business. Consequently, the competition named for Don Rainey (‘82) and Rusty Shepard (‘86) is now named the Rainey-Shepard-Kushel Business Plan Competition. 

“Rick is such an innovative thinker, and his approach to his support at JMU has been very unique,” said Nick Langridge ('00, '07M, '14Ph.D.) JMU vice president for advancement. Kushel and Langridge first met at that chemistry department panel back in 2012 and have stayed close since. “It’s so interesting that Rick started out as a chemist, but through his successful career as an entrepreneur has been able to act as a catalyst on the JMU campus.”  

“Majoring in chemistry taught me how to think in a three-dimensional way,” said Kushel. “I tell students that it’s not necessarily what you know or learn in your major. It’s how you learn how to think and how you grow and interact with people. That’s what matters.”