Craig Vodnik graduated from Illinois with a Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering in 1992, but his winding path back to NPRE has included time in e-commerce and entrepreneurship. He presently lives in Austin, Texas and travels back to Urbana-Champaign often to offer his expertise to current students. Vodnik sat down for an interview in October 2024 to talk about what drives him to give back to the U of I and NPRE.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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How often would you say you come back to campus?
I'd say it's probably twice a year roughly, and usually for between four and seven days, depending on what's happening.
What is the feeling when you come back?
It's actually energizing to be back on campus and to see all of the progress that's happening, in terms of new programs and, frankly, the intelligence of the students. I constantly think I probably wouldn't have gotten into this university if I applied now because the students are so smart and so kind. They're very mature, and…they're driven. Maybe it's sort of selective bias because I'm typically involved with the entrepreneurial activities and so I see some of those kinds of students.
It's very energizing for me to see that that kind of activity. This is the first time that we did the Founders Week activities, and that was really exciting to see. Again, the progress of the entrepreneurial ecosystem on campus and how it's not just a bunch of individual random conversations that are happening, but it's now very focused…activities that bring a lot of different people, different parts of the entrepreneurial ecosystem to campus, which is going to help more entrepreneurs be hopefully successful by having this focus on it and the Illini Angels, which is a new thing. It's really exciting to see what's going on campus nowadays.
Is that the part of the reason you keep coming back? What do you get out of being around the students and the faculty?
The University of Illinois is a place where I can have impact on the next generation. My journey to entrepreneurship was very nonlinear. When I was on campus, I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. In fact, I wasn't for 15 years or so after I left. So that was clearly much later in the future. But as I reflect on being an entrepreneur, the more I'm on campus, the more I understand how the time I spent on campus and in my studies helped me become an entrepreneur and why I really enjoyed that, which I just never would have expected. I like being able to come back and give back to and have an impact on hopefully the next generation of entrepreneurs that will come out of the university…not many alumni actually can have the kind of impact that people like me can have here.
What made you want to start contributing your time and money?
When I started coming back to campus while I was still running my business and it was actually one of my clients who's also an alumni who connected me with the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the TEC (Technology Entrepreneur Center). I just was unaware of really any of that happening here and had not been connected to the campus for a long time. When I came back, I started seeing what was going on and I was not donating to the university. I was just sort of exploring and then I found ways that I can connect with the University and connect with my own past to a certain extent. I realized how excited people were to have the opportunity to talk to me and to maybe learn a few key lessons that I've learned over many years. As it kind of went along, I just realized that there were more opportunities for me to make an impact.
What would you tell an alum in your position who may be hesitant about contributing or giving themselves or coming back if they were to ask you?
Every alum probably has some value to give back to the university. It could be in their time. It could be in small donations. It could be much bigger than that. It just really depends. But I believe that any alum that wants to give back…there is a way for them to do that and so, it really just depends on the point in their career that they are or how much they really want to just speak to students.
We had a question from a student in the class that that I was talking to where they wanted to know what it's like to be in a company, to work in a company. How can they find a good job? And that's not my expertise. There are students who…want to go into a company, get a really good job, and they would love to talk to somebody that's been in the workforce for five years or 10 years and how their experience at the university and what they did to just go from being a student to being a full-time employee.
There's a lot of need for that, too, and that doesn't require to have started a business and run it for 20 years and all those other things…One thing I would add is that for departments that are smaller like NPRE, the impact that someone who is a graduate can have in just spending a few hours once a year or every couple of years is much greater.
Because the department is small, you have the ability to impact maybe one person really deeply and you can make those unique connections in spending just a half a day here.