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Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center
Dennis and Stacey Barsema’s generosity to Northern Illinois University provides important support for student programs and scholarships but in a much more visible way has changed the landscape of Northern’s campus. Their incredibly generous gifts totaling more than $23 million have funded the College of Business’ Barsema Hall and provided major support toward the construction of the Barsema Alumni and Visitors Center and the Academic and Athletic Performance Center. Those who bleed red and black understand the true impact of their philanthropy to Northern.
However, financial support is just one aspect of the Barsemas’ importance to the Northern community. Both Dennis and Stacey are regular visitors to campus giving of their time and expertise as members of the board of directors of the Northern Illinois University Foundation.
Dennis also serves as a teacher and mentor in the College of Business. For a month during each fall semester, he team-teaches a business course on entrepreneurship. He also spends a considerable amount of time meeting with and mentoring business students providing inspiration to those who hear his story – triumphs and struggles alike.
At a young age Dennis learned how to overcome fears and find ways to be successful, even when the odds were against him. Dennis moved from a small town which had 13 students in his eighth grade class to the much larger Naperville Central High School. After earning his degree in management at NIU, he began his career earning a modest $11,500 a year selling calculators door-to-door. He quickly learned the ropes and moved up the sales ranks at Burroughs Corp., and elsewhere. Dennis’s career took off in the 1980s as he moved from sales to management, taking on increasingly important roles at ever larger companies. In the early 1990s he became intrigued as friends left the corporate world for start-up companies. “I noticed that the people who were successful weren’t any different than me,” he says.
With more than 20 years of executive experience in telecommunications, software, and optical networking, Dennis is a venture partner with Benchmark Capital, a leading venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. He is also the chairman of Blue Lane Technologies. Previously the CEO and chairman of Onetta, Inc., Dennis led the company through the early stages of development and growth. Onetta was recently acquired by Bookham Technologies of London, England. Before joining Onetta, Dennis was the president and CEO of Redback Networks, where he led the company through rapid growth and one of the most successful IPOs in Wall Street history. Prior to joining Redback in 1997, he held senior executive positions at Centigram Corporation (acquired by ADC), Softswitch (acquired by Lotus Development Corporation), Primary Access (acquired by 3Com), and Paradyne Corporation (acquired by Zhone).
Dennis serves on the board of directors of several venture capital-funded, Silicon Valley-based companies, including Blue Lane Technologies and NetDevices. He also serves as a director on several non-profit boards including Northern Illinois University Foundation, and Carpenters Place of Rockford, Illinois. He is also an advisor to the Schools of Business at Santa Clara University and Northern Illinois University.
Stacey Barsema’s devotion to education and other worthy causes is evident by her commitment to NIU as well as numerous other organizations. In addition to serving on the board of directors of the NIU Foundation, Stacey sits on the boards of numerous not-for-profit organizations.
As president of the Barsema Family Foundation, Stacey oversees the foundation’s support of a number of organizations worldwide that are primarily focused on education, poverty, and animal rights. The Barsema Family Foundation supported the funding of Barsema Hall, the state-of-the-art facility built in 2002 to house NIU’s College of Business.
Stacey is on the board of directors of Opportunity International, a worldwide organization headquartered in Chicago that annually distributes over $250 million in micro-loans to impoverished people around the world, allowing them to overcome poverty as they become self-supporting entrepreneurs. She is also involved with Opportunity International’s Africa AIDS Campaign, which has raised over $25 million to fight AIDS in Africa.
A member of the board of directors of the Oakland Zoo, she also serves as the chair of the zoo’s fund development committee. Stacey is a member of the board of directors of Carpenters Place, a nonprofit organization that provides the homeless with life-rebuilding tools.
While Dennis and Stacey Barsema’s philanthropy encompasses a wide variety of causes, their strong commitment to education is evident by their active involvement with and continued support of Northern Illinois University. The Barsemas reside in Monte Sereno, California. Son Eric is a 2003 NIU graduate with a B.S. degree in marketing, and son Jason is a junior at NIU, majoring in economics with a minor in finance. Son Matthew graduated in 2000 from Rockhurst University with a degree in business.
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Barsema Alumni and
Visitors Center
231 N. Annie Glidden Rd.
DeKalb, IL 60115
815.753.1534
815.753.0278 (fax)
Located on the campus of
Northern Illinois University |
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