Brown and Gold (and Green)
After 16 years working for the Chrysler Corporation and in the financial sector, Neil Swiacki decided to forge his own path and launched his first businesses NCS Marketing Group and Competitive Edge Marketing in 2005. In 2009, he followed those businesses up with a third, Environmental Carolinas, after seeing the need for Carolina businesses to improve their environmental efforts and communicate their green successes to customers, communities, employees and vendors.
Swiacki’s path as an entrepreneur is not unexpected. In 1981, Professor John Upjohn wrote a letter to Swiacki noting, “Very clearly you have the ability to be a student as well as an entrepreneur, and it is my opinion that life-long study habits are most important in business – as they are in many other areas of life.” Swiacki still has the letter from Upjohn on vintage 1980s WMU letterhead. It turns out that Upjohn was right; Swiacki would, indeed, become an entrepreneur and a lifelong learner. Swiacki remembers Upjohn’s class fondly and said he felt that it was “tailored” for him, especially due to the small class size and personal attention from Professor Upjohn.
His experiences in the MBA program, learning about entrepreneurship and a wide array of other subjects, served Swiacki well. Throughout his work life, he realized that if you really try to foster change, you take risks and sometimes things do not work, but “others do not hold the keys to your success – YOU DO – and that is very freeing,” he says.
Long-time supporters of WMU and life members of the Alumni Association, he and his wife Susan Davitt, B.S.'81, are advocates for the University and contribute financially. “I recently volunteered to mentor business students. I am looking forward to it. No matter where a Western alum lives, there is always an opportunity to do something to help WMU,” he says with trademark Bronco enthusiasm.