The “Where are they now?” series looks at how Okoboji Entrepreneurial Institute shaped the lives, entrepreneurial journeys and career paths of its alumni. Email your story.
Name and Title: Carl Kirpes, Crude Oil Strategy & Analysis
University attended, degree and year of graduation: Iowa State University, B.S. Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering & B.S. Mechanical Engineering, 2012 + Masters in Systems Engineering, 2014
Year attended Okoboji Entrepreneurial Institute: 2012
Company name: Marathon Petroleum Corporation
Location: Findlay, Ohio
Tell us about your career: My career started at a company in the Pappajohn research park in Ames, Iowa – Proplanner. Dave Sly, the Proplanner founder and president, was also an Iowa State University professor. Given I was on the University football team at Iowa State, Proplanner provided me with the opportunity to gain work experience in my field over the summers and still be in a geographic location that allowed me to attend football practice. Dave is also active in OEI, and spoke to the group of students during one of the OEI events about his entrepreneurship journey when I was an OEI attendee. Following my graduation from Iowa State, Dave knew the CEO of a larger company in a similar line of work in Kansas City, and introduced me and a few other students to that organization. The company was GENESYS, an organization that designs, builds, and installs production lines for major manufacturers. GENESYS doesn’t have a product line, so everything they do is custom in nature. I was hooked on the concept of being able to not only impact one organization but multiple organizations across varying industries, and I loved the company’s entrepreneurial spirit. I joined GENESYS in their Solutions Development Department, helping clients design production and assembly solutions in industries ranging from automotive to building products to food and beverage. About 6 months into that role, the then Vice President of Operations had some family circumstances that took him away from the office. I did my best to support him while he was away, and quickly began to build relationships with the department managers and company leadership. Six months later, the Vice President of Operations decided to retire, and the president, CEO, and CFO felt like I was the best candidate for the job. As the VP, I led a team of 7 department managers and ~80 employees to three of the best years in the companies then 20 year history. During that time in my career I had established many mentors, some of who I would consider members of my personal board of directors to this day. There came a time when many of those mentors began to encourage me to go work for a larger organization – they felt I had the ability to one-day lead a Fortune 100 company and that I would likely need to work in a large corporate environment to fully utilize my capability towards that calling. At about that same time, a colleague called and asked me to join his team at Andeavor, an oil & gas company in San Antonio, Texas. He led the Excellence & Innovation organization within the company, an initiative created by the CEO, to develop intrapreneurship across the entire organization. I took my mentors’ advice and my passion for intrapreneurship and joined Andeavor as the Excellence & Innovation Program Manager. Six months later, Andeavor was bought by Marathon Petroleum Corporation. I was again recruited, this time internally, to join the Crude Oil Strategy & Analysis team at Marathon. Up to this point in my career I had roles that had provided me with leadership opportunities and scope (VP of Operations at GENESYS) and scale (Excellence & Innovation Program Manager at Andeavor) and I saw the Crude Oil Strategy & Analysis position as a role that would further enhance my capabilities around strategy and vision. Although I have not founded my own firm, I have found the lessons I learned at OEI have been applicable in many ways and were a key part of developing my intrapreneurial spirit that has guided me throughout my career.
Tell us about your journey: Outside of my career, I spend a great deal of time learning and leading. One of my greatest strengths is learning, and I have continued to feed that passion through continuing education. I am currently a certified professional engineering, project management professional, and I am in pursuit of my PhD. I also enjoy leading and have had the fortune of taking on many leadership roles through the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers. I truly believe that Industrial & Systems Engineering has the ability to transform industry and academia, a belief I developed during my Rhodes/Marshall scholarship application process, and I continue to devote effort towards that passion. I am currently the Senior Vice President of Industry for the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE), and on a recent IISE Problem Solved podcast I tell a bit more about my journey: https://podcast.iise.org/episodes/the-road-from-student-to-professional-with-carl-kirpes.
How are you applying what you learned or experienced at OEI to your career? The simulation at OEI was a great way for students, such as myself at the time, who had limited understanding of the business world to gain experience that would otherwise take years to gain in a traditional career-starting role. I found the knowledge I gained at OEI was instrumental in having a broader understanding of business, how a company interfaces with a changing marketplace, and the different types of decisions that can be made that do/do not have an impact in an organization. I’d attribute some of my ability to quickly learn and accelerate my career at GENESYS to the lessons I learned at OEI.
Do you have any mentors (in Okoboji or elsewhere) who have helped you along the way? How valuable have mentors been to your entrepreneurial career? Yes, I have had a number of mentors throughout my career. Dave Sly at Proplanner (and also an active participant in OEI), Matthew Perry who is the President at GENESYS, Jose Pires who was the VP of Business Improvement & Productivity at Andeavor, have all been mentors in my work life. Jon McGraw, former Kansas City Chiefs Football Captain and founder of Vision Pursue, is another mentor who taught me Performance Mindset. And my father, Paul Kirpes, is a constant mentor I turn to for advice. He taught me that in life you don’t always have to know the entire path to your destination, sometimes all you need is a right next step. Greg Goff, fromer CEO of Andeavor and current Executive Vice Chairman of Marathon, once told me that anyone can be a mentor if you just learn one thing from each person you meet. I have found this advice to be true and in that way have been impacted by more people than I can name here.
What are your favorite OEI memories? My favorite memories of OEI include connecting with and learning from the people I met there. The reception in the Bedell home was filled with amazing individuals, each with vast experience, but more importantly a willingness and eagerness to share knowledge and wisdom with the students in attendance. That spirit of giving back and paying it forward is my favorite memory of OEI, and one I aim to carry forward in my own actions such that others might one-day see me in the same way (because if I have done that, then I know I have truly made a difference).
How would you describe OEI to a student who has never heard of the program? OEI is an opportunity of a life-time. Very rarely will you have access to so many successful business leaders and like-minded individuals in the same place at the same time, all looking to help you learn and kick-start your career.