October 2004Dr. John F. Zak might well be the New Millennium’s version of the Renaissance Man.
A medical doctor in the second year of the Baldwin-Wallace College Entrepreneurship MBA program, Zak sees opportunities to marry his two passions: health sciences and entrepreneurship.
“Northeast Ohio has always been a leader in clinical medicine and in the delivery of health care,” he said. “The region has often set the pace and the standard of care on a global scale.”
However, Northeast Ohio has been less than efficient in creating value around the significant research conducted here, he said.
“Regional leaders have begun to embrace cutting-edge technology such as the stem-cell research under way here, but we have a long way to go in order to be competitive with other areas of the country,” Zak said. “The science has always been here. Now, we just need to improve our skills at bringing it to the marketplace.”
He believes the region offers huge opportunities, for example, in the development and marketing of biomaterials such as implantable devices, or in applying an information technology solution to a bioscience intellectual property.
He defined entrepreneurship as an ability to create value out of something that is undervalued, or to organize parts and processes in a way that creates a marketable product, service or process.
“The entrepreneur need not be an inventor, but has to be an innovator,” he said. “We need not be so brilliant as to hold the cure to cancer; we have to be innovative enough to organize those who hold the individual answers.”
The true entrepreneur need not be a risk taker of inordinate magnitude, but rather must be able to assess inordinate risk, he said.
“To some extent, we are all entrepreneurs,” he said. “We just don’t realize it until we put a label on it.”
He does believe that entrepreneurship may, to some extent, be innate. He is a co-founder of a four-surgeon cosmetic and reconstructive surgery practice. Even before attending B-W, Zak had a regional view of business in Northeast Ohio; he has offices in Lakewood, Middleburg Heights and Canton.
As his practice developed, he honed his entrepreneurial instinct.
“Beyond taking care of my patients, I found that what I loved most about my practice was creating the business,” he said.
Whether his 2005 graduation leads to private-equity venture capital, a managerial forum or elsewhere, Zak believes the B-W Entrepreneurship MBA uniquely prepares him for the future.
“My experience at Baldwin-Wallace has been nothing short of fabulous,” he said. “It has been refreshing to find the whole network of alumni, trustees and faculty so accessible and such a great resource for students to tap into.” In addition, he noted, the school offers access to key players in relevant industries, a well-rounded curriculum and a faculty that has real-world, hands-on experience as well as academic expertise.
“Unequivocally, the Baldwin-Wallace experience is very competitive with that of other institutions, including Ivy League schools, large universities and small, private schools,” he said.
Zak, 38, has a B.S. from Wittenberg University, earned a doctor of dental medicine degree (D.M.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania, and received his medical degree from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
His wife, Heather, also has a flair for entrepreneurship. She is the founder of Bears by the Falls, a children’s entertainment and educational firm where learning activities such as reading and music programs are combined with special events. Their two sons, Oliver, 7 and Sawyer, 3, “have some awesome birthday parties,” Zak said.
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