Issue date: 10/17/05 Section: News

Jason Gilbert - The Battalion. Founder and spokesman of Oreck vacuums, David Oreck, gives a presentation in Wehner Friday morning.

David Oreck, the name and face behind the 42-year-old lightweight Oreck vacuum line, said courage, determination and perseverance are the aspects an entrepreneur should always have.

"If you fail once, just dust yourself off and try again, because there is nothing to fear," he said. "Not even fear is worth the fear."

Oreck shared ideologies of his business and life with Mays Business School graduate students Friday in the Copenhagen Center.

Wendy Flynn, associate director of the MBA program at Mays, said Oreck's presentation was a part of the Executive Lecture Series, where "students come and learn from other great business tycoons' experiences."

Oreck said post World War II led to the shortage of utilities, which sparked the idea to start a company selling vacuum cleaners. Oreck Corporation began in 1963 as a company manufacturing upright vacuum cleaners for the hotel industry in the United States. Oreck Corp. now sells its vacuum cleaners throughout North and South America as well as Europe and Asia.

"When I started my design of vacuum cleaners, the market had cleaners which were 25 pounds," Oreck said.

He said he decided to design a vacuum with the same efficiency and power as the 25-pound vacuums, but one that did not weigh so much.

"I had a lot of critics to this approach but I kept visualizing the old cleaners in hotels who used to curse the heavy vacuums and tried to picture what they wanted, and I knew this was the answer," he said.

Oreck said he was asked if such cleaners were available for household purposes and then decided to go a step further to market his product in households. Oreck Corp. then slowly, yet steadily, diversified its product line and began manufacturing air fresheners and cleaners, he said.

"My wife has a 30-year-old Oreck XL, which runs perfectly, and I make sure she uses it every week," laughed Matt Wilson, a MBA student.

Oreck said the most important advice he could give to students is to carve a niche for themselves and their brand. Try to break away from the norm and give the customers something more than they expect, Oreck said. If that is done, people will buy a product at the quoted price and not go to companies that sell it cheap, he said.

"Respect is what I search for, and not money, and I believed this business could give me that," he said.

Corrections and Clarifications

Wendy Flynn is the associate director of Texas A&M's MBA program. Her name was misspelled in Monday's issue.

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