BUILDING ON ETHICS

UND Alumnus Bob Olafson has been supporting the College by providing a platform for ethical conversations for over a decade.

Growing up on a farm near Gardar, North Dakota, Bob Olafson took advantage of all of the opportunities he could. “In a small town, you get to know everyone and participate in anything you would like,” says Olafson.

And Olafson truly did that by engaging in sports, music, the yearbook, and the school newspaper at Edinburg High School. His curiosity and team spirit followed him to UND, where his dad, his brother, and his sister are alumni. Olafson was an active member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity, which is founded on the pillars of fellowship, leadership, scholarship, and service.

Olafson began his time at UND as a Math major, and during his 4th year of college decided to add Business to his course plan. He graduated with his Math degree in 1971 and then took a semester off for active duty in the North Dakota National Guard. Following active duty, he returned to UND to complete the final semester of his Business degree in the fall of 1972.

“The country was in a recession at that time, with not a lot of hiring going on,” says Olafson.

Not sure exactly what his next steps would be, Olafson scheduled an oncampus interview with Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance based out of St. Paul, which he heard was currently interviewing for many types of positions.

When Olafson had the interview, the recruiter told him about the opportunity to become an actuary.

Olafson was invited to St. Paul for an interview and was offered a position with the company to join the actuarial profession. Olafson took the job, which marked the start of his 39-year tenure with the company and the profession.

“The combination of math and business was a good start for going into the actuarial field,” says Olafson.

As the company grew to later be known as Securian Financial, so did the many roles that Olafson held.

The core of the work Olafson did was based on developing pricing for group life insurance products and analyzing past results. “I had to use the best information I had to predict forward on potential costs and assumed interest rates,” says Olafson.

He started out by learning about the actuarial profession, and later took on additional accountabilities with supervisory roles, management, as well oversight in the areas of sales, marketing, and customer service.

“One area I always kept my hand in directly was pricing for bigger clients,” says Olafson. Olafson’s final role prior to retirement was serving as the Senior Vice President of Group Insurance.

During his time at Securian, Olafson occasionally found himself in situations where he was faced with ethical questions. “For example, at one point several competitors (in the insurance business) were agreeing to do something that didn’t seem right. By doing so, they would have access to a lot of clients, but we didn’t think it was right, and so we said, ‘no,’” recalls Olafson.

This turned out to be a good decision as the competitors thereafter received negative publicity and Securian Financial was held in a positive light.

“It can be hard to stick to your guns – in business and in life,” says Olafson. “We could have had more short-term success and brought in more business, but it wasn’t right.”

At this time, Olafson was also starting to reengage with the University of North Dakota. The former CEO of the UND Alumni Association & Foundation Tim O’Keefe and then Vice-President DeAnna Carlson Zink had asked to meet him for dinner.

“DeAnna and Tim wanted to talk about a capital campaign to fix up Gamble Hall,” says Olafson. “It was at the right time in my life, so I asked them to come back with some ideas.”

The next visit was with DeAnna and Dean Emeritus of the Nistler College Dennis Elbert, who shared a few ideas with one of them being an ethics symposium. Having been faced with ethical dilemmas recently in his career, Olafson connected to this idea, and in 2005, the first Olafson Ethics Symposium was held.

“I felt like this would be a good opportunity to provide a platform for people to talk about ethics,” says Olafson.

Now 17 years later, the Olafson Symposium has developed into a signature event for the Nistler College with a valued platform of ethics, a cornerstone pillar for the College. “All of the symposiums have been good and very different each year,” says Olafson. Additionally, the symposiums have fostered collaboration across the University with partnerships with numerous colleges and offices such as Aerospace, Arts & Sciences, and the Office of Diversity & Inclusion.

Community leaders have also been engaged as expert panelists, networking opportunities, and attendees for the keynote lecture and dinner panel.

Each year the symposium evolves as different topic areas are explored based on national trends, making the lecture timely and informative for students, faculty, and the local community.

When asked about the impact of giving towards this initiative Olafson says, “The main thing for me is that I didn’t realize it would feel so good. If I just gave a gift to fix up an office it wouldn’t have been as lasting, but this gift keeps encouraging me to come back and meet all kinds of faculty, staff, and students.”

Olafson enjoys the connections and the way he is able to be involved with this type of experience every year. Olafson also has stayed engaged with the College by serving on the Nistler College Advisory Council for 9 years, and now serving as an emeritus council member.

“Students have shared how much they appreciate it, and it feels great to think I am doing something of value for students and faculty,” says Olafson.

KEYNOTE Q&A