Profiles

Lynn Jahn, Tippie College of Business

	Lynn Jahn, assistant director of the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center, cheers from her seat inside Kinnick Stadium. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

Before joining the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (JPEC) in the Tippie College of Business, Lynn Jahn followed a career path that had her riding the wave of the 1990s technology boom. Starting as a software engineer for Cedar Rapids–based Rockwell Collins, she moved to Parsons Technology (which was later sold to Intuit), Broderbund Software, and finally The Learning Company. While the tech boom is most closely associated with California’s Silicon Valley, Jahn remained in Cedar Rapids, helping to foster Iowa’s high technology reputation.

In 2000 she began sharing her knowledge and experience with UI students and faculty as well as the general public through her work with JPEC. She was named assistant director in 2003 and now serves as managing director for the Bedell Entrepreneurship Learning Laboratory, where she mentors up to 17 UI students starting businesses.

She recently sat down with fyi to talk about entrepreneurship, teaching, public speaking, and college football.

Tell us how an economics major from Cedar Rapids found her way to computer programming and leadership within the technology field.

I had gotten a math minor with my first degree and really liked math. With economics I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, and computer programming was getting hot, so I thought, “Well, I have all this math background, maybe I’ll take some classes in computer science and see what it’s all about.” I really loved it. I never considered myself one of these computer nerds that totally loved computers and programming. But I enjoyed it, and it was a good-paying job. I always knew I wanted to manage people and kind of move up from there.

Are people surprised to learn that Iowa has career opportunities in high technology?

I always hear that Iowa is kind of the manufacturing and farming environment, but it seems to me like there’s a lot of high technology as well. In the past, the state has focused its economic development effort on trying to lure companies to Iowa. I’m really glad that the state is also proactively encouraging entrepreneurial activity as an avenue towards job creation. That excites me because that’s what I’ve seen with my experience. Bob Parsons started a company here and created thousands of jobs.

What is the University’s role in fostering entrepreneurship?

What we’re focusing on at JPEC is education for all Iowans. We offer camps and teacher training programs for students as young as the fourth grade. We’re really trying to change the entrepreneurial mindset. I knew people through my career who were raised in Silicon Valley and grew up knowing a lot of entrepreneurs. Iowa kids don’t grow up necessarily knowing a lot of entrepreneurs. Their parents may have worked at a large company their whole lives. So I think we have to start early to try to change that mindset.

We obviously have a huge focus on UI students, mainly at the undergraduate level, but we have a cross-campus program. Most of our students do come from the Colleges of Business, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Engineering, but students from any college are welcome in our program. (UI undergraduates can earn a Certificate in Entrepreneurship through JPEC.)

The state and the University, through the Iowa Centers for Enterprise, of which JPEC is a part, are focusing on technology transfer and commercialization of UI intellectual property. And the role that JPEC is really playing is again the educational component. So we’re helping to educate faculty on entrepreneurship and business and helping to give them the tools they need to start and run their businesses.

What makes a successful entrepreneur?

I think one of the things is they really have to have belief and passion in what they’re doing. There’s just too much to overcome. Too many late nights and too many problems to overcome if you don’t really believe in what you’re doing. It’s pretty easy to give up.

What is the biggest downfall?

There’s plenty of research on traits that make a good entrepreneur and traits that can be challenging for entrepreneurs. One of the things they talk about is the ability to balance risk. Take reasonable risks but not take crazy risks.

Is it risky to pin our state’s economic hopes on entrepreneurs?

You probably need a balance. Start-ups are more of a longer-term solution. The problem with competing to try to get companies to move here is that every state in the country is trying to get companies to move to their states, so it gets to be very expensive. You have to give so much in tax breaks and incentives that it’s almost not worth it sometimes.

What’s the biggest risk you ever took?

I won’t even get on a roller coaster, so I’m not a big risk taker in that aspect. I guess it was a big risk for my career coming to the University. I wanted to stay in Iowa, and when they closed operations for our facility in Cedar Rapids, I basically had to choose between going to Silicon Valley, where most of the high tech stuff is, or trying to have a more balanced life here in Iowa. While I loved my old job, it was an 80-hour-a-week job. So that was a pretty big risk and it made me really nervous for a while because the longer I’m away from it, the tougher it would be to carry on with that aspect of my career.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I really love working with the students, and obviously I am a huge fan of Iowa and the Hawkeyes, so being at the University has a lot of things going for it. One thing I enjoyed about my career was seeing my employees develop in their own careers and develop their skills, and now I have that with the students.

Tell us about your first job.

In college I worked in the mailroom at the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Basically I counted newspapers. They’d come down off the press in a pile of 10 on a weekend or 50 during the week, and maybe some carrier needed 42, so you’d take off eight and put this cover sheet and then it would wrap. This was in the mid-’80s and jobs were not all that easy to come by, so I felt pretty lucky to have that job compared to some of my friends in college. It paid better than working at McDonald’s and had hours that maybe weren’t ideal, but didn’t interfere with my school. I went to work at 10 at night and would get off at 3 or 4 in the morning. I tried to not go to class before 9:30 but that wasn’t always possible.

How ink-stained were you during that time?

Well, the ink comes off your skin, but clothes got ruined.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work?

I’m the biggest football fan probably at the University. I love college football, especially Iowa, but I’ll watch any college game broadcast. We’re going out to the Iowa-Penn State game in Happy Valley. I have a goal to make it to every Big Ten stadium once. I have two left: Michigan and Michigan State.

Describe your greatest day on campus.

Probably the most fun day was the 1985 Iowa-Michigan game, when I was in college. We were No. 1 and they were No. 2. We’d planned all week to go the game. I went with a group of eight people, my closest friends from college. I remember watching the field goal at the end, and we all went out to Carlos O’Kelly’s afterward. I can just still remember the whole day walking around Kinnick before the game started. It was almost as crazy as it was for that Ohio State game last year—that festival atmosphere.

Are you part of the Kinnick tailgate culture?

We’ll tailgate maybe once during the season. I want to leave at the last possible minute to get to the game because I want to watch ESPN before the game. If the Iowa game is a late game, there’s an early game on TV I can watch. I have a portable TV that I can take with me to the game so I can hear what’s going on in other games. And then after the game I want to get in the car, get home, and turn on ESPN.

When we have away games, I start watching TV at 9 in the morning and just watch football until it’s time for bed. That sounds crazy—I don’t watch a lot of TV besides football games, but for those few months in the fall I’m addicted.

by Mary Geraghty Kenyon

Past Profiles

Robert Brooks, Facilities Management

Michael Sondergard, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics

Carol Severino, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, College of Education