Max Dunn’s Admission Essay

Presidio School of Management, Sustainable MBA
November 2008

There is a poster hanging above my desk. I created it during a Stanford continuing education class that was designed to help us create a life vision based on our personal and professional goals. In this poster, we cut out pictures from magazines that reflected what made us happy and what we wanted to do with our lives. Some of the pictures on my poster reflect peak oil, electric vehicles, starting a business, racing school, surfing, exercising, my wife and my family. Also in the upper-right corner is a logo for Harvard Business School. Ever since I was a boy, I dreamed of starting my own business. My plan was to get a technical undergraduate degree, work for a few years and then get an MBA.

However, not everything went as expected. Near the end of my Junior year at Cal, I came down with chronic fatigue and I had to drop out of school. In the fall when I came back, I still was not completely better and so concentrated just on my computer class which I enjoyed and excelled at. This made me re-evaluate my direction in life and so I decided to transfer to UC Santa Cruz to get a degree in Computer Science. With my energy back, I also started working for a software company while completing my degree, so I was quite busy. After graduation, I continued working for InsMark for a few years and then started my first business.

Over the next 14 years I starting three more businesses and then worked for almost three years for Xythos, the company that bought my last business. Blink - where did the time go? After retiring in May of 2005, I talked to some friends about getting an MBA. “Why do you want an MBA?” they asked, “You already know how to run a business!”  It was true - when I looked at the traditional MBA curriculum, there was not much that I was excited about. But then last year, I picked up a brochure about the Bainbridge MBA at the Green Fair and became intrigued by the idea of a green MBA.

I love to learn and am an avid reader. My bookshelf is full of many business books, and some of my favorite are by Peter Drucker. But I also question conventional business wisdom. For instance, while I have always accepted the axiom that businesses need to grow or die, I still wonder - is this really true? Why can’t you grow a business to a comfortable size and then keep it there? I felt as is a traditional MBA program would not even consider this a question worth exploring, but maybe a sustainable MBA program would.

In addition, my research into peak oil has lead me to the conclusion that the end of easy oil is near and making the transition to sustainable energy sources will be the biggest challenge humankind will ever face. This is going to make a huge impact on businesses as many business models are intrinsically dependent on cheap oil. Also, as the world’s population continues to grow, we will likely start running into peak natural gas, peak coal, and peak pretty much everything else. Only the businesses that can adapt to this new reality and adopt sustainable business practices will be able to survive.

This is a perfect time for me to pursue my dream of getting an MBA. My major role since my retirement has been that of a stay-at-home-dad and it has been wonderful to spend more time with my 9-year old daughter and 13-year old son and help out around the house so my wife can go back to work. However, my largest block of time still goes to reading, researching, blogging and writing Ruby on Rails code. So the hybrid program will fit neatly into my schedule and allow me to continue my stay-at-home-dad duties and still still have plenty of time to put in 50 hours a week on my studies. But I also think that personal interaction is critical too, so the once-a-month on-site element of this program is also very important to me.

I am really excited about the Presidio MBA program in Sustainable Management and see myself contributing in several ways. First off, I will actively participate in class closely following the lectures and contributing to discussions. Secondly, I will use my business contacts to find sponsors for projects. Next, I will actively promote the Presidio program and volunteer for recruitment efforts. Lastly, when I start my next wildly successful sustainable business, I will continue to support Presidio.

One of the areas I am very interested in is how to run a business in a way that maximizes employee satisfaction. Dennis Bakke in his book “Joy at Work” provides one framework based on fairness, fun and pushing the decision making process down to the lowest effective level. Another area I would like to explore is having regular life coaching sessions for all employees to work out interpersonal challenges in the workplace and provide life guidance.

A sustainability issue that I have been working on is water conservation, in particular, eliminating the “muda” of sprinkler systems. The two main requirements for watering are to water the right amount and water in the right place - and most sprinkler systems do neither well. I have been experimenting with computer-controlled rotating sprinkler heads that can direct a stream of water more precisely than a normal sprinkler head and moisture sensors so that watering is only done when the ground becomes dry. This system does decrease water usage, but to get to the next level, I envision a robotic system that will scurry around mapping out the soil moisture levels and delivering just enough water in precisely the correct location.

Another area I am passionate about is electric vehicles (EVs). The most important benefit of EVs is that they will radically reduce our usage of oil since personal transportation consumes 41% of all oil used in the US. In addition a fleet of EVs would allow us to better use the intermittent power produced by solar and wind sources by charging when power is being produced and then returning power to the grid when needed. EV technology is ready, but battery systems need more development. One problem with batteries is that in order to get the high-voltages needed for EVs, it is necessary to string many batteries in series. However, charging and discharging strings of batteries rapidly causes them to become unbalanced which reduces their energy output and life span. To prevent this, a battery management system (BMS) is needed to keep all the batteries balanced, but there isn’t a good, low-cost BMS commercially available.

In summary, I am very excited about the Presidio MBA program in Sustainable Management and believe that I have the time, skills and motivation to be successful in this program. I also think that it will be a lot of fun and am looking forward to contributing in different ways. I am very confident that the Presidio MBA program will launch me into my next venture better equipped not only to start a business that will make the world a better place, but also to run it in a sustainable way that produces a profit while also respecting people and the planet.

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