Entrepreneur shifts gears.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

Early last year, Terry Sebastian, who has built his career making key decisions for investors and companies, faced a crucial decision of his own: What next?

Some soul-searching led him to the University of Oregon where earlier this month he became the new managing director of the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship at the business school.

"I wanted to find an opportunity that really allowed me to marry my commercial activities with some activities that I felt that were just more rewarding, quite frankly," he said.

Sebastian will continue to be a managing director of Lake Pacific Partners, a private equity firm he co-founded in Chicago. And he'll continue to serve as chairman of a Canadian frozen food company, as a director of a California fruit-based ingredients company and as a director of an Illinois marketing services company.

Those responsibilities will take him away from Eugene about once a month, but they'll enable him to maintain his network of business contacts, which will benefit the center and its students, Sebastian said.

His new full-time job will be directing the nationally recognized 20-year-old Lund quist Center for Entrepreneurship, as well as its flagship programs, the annual New Venture business plan competition and the Technology Entrepreneurs Program, a cross-disciplinary program that brings law and business students together with scientists "to ferret out the commercial potential" of emerging patented technologies developed at the University of Oregon, he said.

He will succeed Randy Swangard, who headed the center from 2001 to 2008 before he was named assistant dean for external programs at the business school.

Sebastian said his first order of business will simply be trying to pick up where Swangard left off.

"Right now I just want to make sure I don't screw up what Randy's done," he said.

Dean Dennis Howard regards Sebastian's wealth of real-world experience as a plus for the entrepreneurship center.

"Terry has led successful business turnarounds and growth investments, making him an ideal resource for our center that seeks to instill in its students the ability to inform and evaluate their business ideas with real world perspective," Howard said. "I have no doubt he will further the (Lundquist Center's) reputation as a leader in entrepreneurial education."

Sebastian, 41, said he was drawn to the Pacific Northwest by the strength of the University of Oregon's entrepreneurship program and "for all kinds of lifestyle reasons."

"Being in a college town really appealed to me," said Sebastian, who earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

"I love big colleges and big college sports," he said. "I like big state universities because I really think they're true difference makers," making educational opportunities readily accessible to a broad range of students.

He said he'd also enjoyed vacationing in Oregon and looked forward to settling in a place with abundant outdoor and culinary opportunities.

Sebastian said he mentioned his desire to make a career transition to a friend and former colleague who had settled in Portland, and the friend pointed him towards the UO's entrepreneurship center.

Sebastian says he's pleased with his move.

"My sense of Oregon as an outsider coming in is this is just a collaborative, cooperative, friendly state. There is a much greater sense of community and joint ownership of everything," - be it the environment, the university or business, he said.

PROFILE

Terry Sebastian is the new managing director of the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business

Experience: A founder and managing director of Lake Pacific Partners LLC, a Chicago private equity investment firm focused on food and consumer products. Former food industry executive. Former business strategy and turnaround expert.

Education: M.B.A., Harvard Business School; bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin.