PSU Magazine Spring 1997

Nonnan Win Chairman of the Board, Thru tma ter Inc. Founder, Floating Point System 10 PSU MAGAZINE PR! G 1997 Starting any kind of business is not for the faint of heart. But starting a firm in the high-tech field-an industry that seems to change in a nanosecond-takes a special combination of fear- By Jack Yost If you want to become a CEO at a company like IBM, go to Harvard or Ya le to get your bu iness degree, Norman Winning tad advises. But if you want to tart your own company, go to Portland tate. Winningstad , one of Portland's best-known entrepreneurs and founder of three high-tech companies, ought to know. A longtime engineeTat Tektron ix Inc., Winningstad left the company in 1970 at age 45 to get a Masters of Business Administrati on. He fo unded Floating Point Systems Inc. while still doing his cou rsework at Portland State. Winni ngstad took courses "to stay slightly ahead of the company," begin– ning with managerial accounting and business, for setting up a corporation and getting the company' book in order. Later came courses like manu– fac turing and marketing. By the time he got his degree, he had learned enough "to ta lk to bankers and venture cap italists" and ecured the funds that allowed his high-tech company to quadruple in ales fo r two years in a row. "We were just zooming. We couldn't get our product out the door fast enough ," he says. Floating Point's growth came from devising a much-needed product that no one else was yet making-array processors- machines that tackled extensive arrays of numbers and did complex calculations much fas ter and at a lower cost than conventional computers of the time. Winningstad says he never really planned to become an entrepreneur. Rather, if given enough new chal– lenge , he would have been happy to stay an " 'intrepreneur,' an intuitive J person who c me up with creative ideas within a company." At Tektronix, Winningstad was allowed to create a new prod uct, info r– mation display y tems, fo r a new divi– sion, but the regular marketing unit was put in charge of selling it. When ales fa iled to match expectation , he was "caught up h rt." At that po int Winning tad realized that although he was "a crackerj ack engi neer," he was "no high-level busi– ness manage r" and took leave of Tektronix to get his MBA. A lthough starting a new company was very tressful at first, "Once it got go ing, it was fu n-we were succeeding and our products were elling." He was also given abundant ass istance from his fo rmer employer. "~ k helped us in every way poss ible. They acted like a big brother and were absolutely wonderful. " Over the years, Winningstad has continued to enj oy the challenges of helping to start new companies, as well as the rewards of ass isting the community that has helped him flour– ish. He and his wife, Dolores, helped finance the building of Portland ' Peifo rming Arts Center and have been generou contributors to PSU 's School of Business Administration. A former pre ident and CEO of Thrustmaster-a local company that makes computer joysticks– Winningstad remains on its board . But these day he i focusing on yet another new career-a an author. He is writing a book on communication, on innova– tive ways to resolve arguments. And as he has done through ut his life, he is hav ing plenty of fun doing it.