Brian McKenzie's Introduction

On September 20, 2010, I began my service as CSUEB Chapter President of the California Faculty Association. I would like to use this blog to introduce myself.

I have spent most of my life as a working entrepreneur. My wife, Molly and I started our first business in 1971, a retail store on Robson Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. We were tea, coffee and spice merchants for 10 years, during which time we fell in love with yachting. We sold our retail store and our Vancouver home in the early eighties and moved aboard our yacht, Cresthaven. I founded a business in Sidney, British Columbia, which repaired and restored old wooden boats. I operated this business from our country home for 15 years. In 1994, I enrolled in the Masters of Business Administration at the University of Victoria MBA program. As my Master’s thesis, I wrote a curriculum in Entrepreneurship, which was successfully implemented. I was hired as a lecturer upon the completion of my MBA. I realized that I needed a PhD in order to be able obtain a tenure-track position so I could develop a significant voice in faculty affairs. I spent 5 years in PhD studies at the University of Victoria. I founded and operated a consulting business, during my graduate studies. Upon completion of my dissertation, a study of the oral histories of self identified entrepreneurs, I received my PhD in 2003. That same year, I received a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor at California State University, Hayward. I received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor at California State University, East Bay in 2009. Molly and I live in the East Bay Hills and most days I ride my bicycle to work.

I consider myself to be an economic activist. I believe that the glass is half full, but I also like to check the glass.

I have agreed to serve as Chapter President of CSUEB CFA for the academic year 2010-2011. We will be holding elections for the Executive Committee of our chapter in Spring 2011. My highest priority is to find colleagues who will compete in these elections. I hope is that, during this academic year, I can assist the CFA in building faculty community. We face a number of significant issues this year as outlined in the "day of action" in support of public education on October 7. However, we have a powerful energy as the members of faculty to overcome these issues.

Joseph Schumpeter pointed out: "It is not only objectively more difficult to do something new than what is familiar and tested by experience, but the individual feels reluctance to do it and would do so even if the objective difficulties did not exist." The San Francisco Bay community, where we live and work is embracing change as we move into an era of low cost communication. This changing environment is objectively more difficult than the familiar and trusted worldview I have come from. The advantage of being a member of a community of faculty is that I get to share my change along with some very bright people. I have faith that, by working together, we can make wise pedagogic, governance, economic and political decisions.

If you would like to become more active in California Faculty Association, please come by one of our Executive Committee Meetings. They are between 12:00 and 2:00 the first and third Mondays of every month in LI 2047A. If you would like to join the CFA list serve, send me an e-mail (brian.mckenzie@csueastbay.edu). You would like to find more information about me or if you would like to follow my personal blog: “Fieldnotes” go to my website: (http://www.brian-mckenzie.com).