Posted on Aug 9, 2004

Merck Ceo Dispenses Business Advice

Raymond V. Gilmartin '63 arrived at Union College in his parents' Ford station wagon in 1959, the first in his family to attend college. Schenectady was the farthest he'd traveled in a day from his Sayville, Long Island home.

More than four decades later, the former engineering student and award-winning athlete is at home the world over, be it partnering with the leaders of foreign nations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or dispensing life-saving drugs to combat HIV and AIDS in South Africa.

As chairman, president and CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co., Gilmartin has been hailed by The Economist as “a role model for the new breed of socially concerned, non-celebrity executives” for his philanthropic work and for being a business leader with a social conscience.

As Gilmartin himself likes to relate with amusement, members of the investment community asked, “Who IS this guy?” when he moved into the top spot at Merck in 1994, the first time in a century the company had chosen a leader from outside its ranks.

Union Years

Gilmartin took an unlikely path toward pharmaceutical CEO. During his years at Union – a time he describes as “exhilarating” – he studied electrical engineering; excelled in football, wrestling and lacrosse; won numerous athletic and academic prizes and also broadened his perspective by taking such courses as “History of the English Novel.”

“Attending Union was a critical opportunity for someone from a small-town high school to have exposure to the humanities, to social and intellectual diversity,” he says. “It built my confidence about what I could aspire to.”

He credits Union for helping him learn to balance multiple responsibilities and sort out values and priorities. “Going to chemistry lab was, for example, considered a higher priority than football practice,” he recalls.

The Outsider

After business school at Harvard and holding positions as a development engineer at Eastman Kodak (1963-66), management consultant at Arthur D. Little (1968-76) and CEO of Becton Dickinson & Co. (1976-94), Gilmartin arrived at Merck in 1994 and quickly turned his outsider status into an advantage.

He introduced a highly inclusive management style, asking his new colleagues to identify key issues and advise how they would face challenges.

“That helps unleash an organization's creative talents,” Gilmartin says. “I focus clearly on the success of Merck and not on my success. If Merck succeeds, I'll do fine.”

By concentrating on Merck's core business of developing breakthrough drugs and divesting non-drug businesses, Gilmartin has led the firm through tremendous growth, launching 17 new drugs and increasing annual revenues from $15 billion to nearly $50 billion since his arrival.

He traces this success to the philosophy stated in 1950 by Chairman George W. Merck: “Medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow.”

“One of the reasons we're here at all is because of these values,” Gilmartin says. “Even though our mission is to discover medicines, we also have a responsibility to help people gain access to those medications.”

Since 1987, before Gilmartin took the reins, Merck has donated $1 billion of the drug Mectizan to treat 30 million people annually for river blindness in sub-Sahara Africa.

A vision and a mission

Under Gilmartin's leadership, the company has continued its mission of providing medicine to those who need it most.

It has donated $100 million worth of vaccines for hepatitis and other diseases to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and committed $50 million through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Republic of Botswana to help combat AIDS in a nation where 40 percent of all adults are infected.

“More than ever, the business world has an important leadership role to play in terms of closing the gap in health and other vital social issues,” Gilmartin says. “Not only do I think it's possible to succeed while maintaining ethical standards, I think it's the only way.”

Ray Gilmartin

WORK: Chairman, president
and CEO of Merck and Co.

PASSION: Fighting AIDS

FAMILY: Married to Gladys Higham; three grown children

HOME: Park Ridge, N.J.

DEGREES: B.S., electrical
engineering, Union, 1963; M.B.A., Harvard, 1968; Hon. LL.D.,
Union, 1999

INTERESTS: Skiing, tennis, sailing

ALUMNI ACTIVITIES: Trustee (1990-98); Trustee Board of Advisors (1988-90); class president (1984-88); ReUnion co-chairman (1988); Friend of Union Athletics

Union Helped Me Take a Major Step Forward

A strong supporter of Union College, Merck CEO Ray Gilmartin has attended all but one of his class ReUnions.

“It's great to see what became of these brilliant and creative people who used to work on Concordiensis or be on the football fields or in the labs. I'm always impressed by the people from Union,” he says.

“As good as the school was when I was a student, I have seen it become stronger and stronger over the years. It's important for alumni to continue to support the school so others can have the same opportunities, or more, in college.”Speaking at commencement in 1999, Gilmartin offered this advice: “Climb higher. Believe in yourself. Follow your instincts. Pursue what you enjoy.” He also quoted writer Tom Wolfe: “The future will be nothing like you imagine.”

Clearly, it's an aphorism that applies to his life.

“In 1963, when I graduated from Union, I had no idea I'd ever be fortunate enough to be able to do the things in that picture,” he says, referring to the photo of him dispensing drugs in Africa that appeared last year in The Economist.

“Union helped me take a major step forward.”

Posted on Aug 5, 2004

Former Union College Hockey players Jason Ralph ('01) and Nathan Gillies ('03) have signed United Hockey League contracts for the 2004-2005 season with the Rockford IceHogs and the Elmira Jackals respectively. Ralph will be playing his first season in the UHL following three seasons with the Bakersfield Condors of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL), while Gillies will look to build on his 39 point effort for the Jackals last season. Gillies also played nine games in the AHL during his 2003-2004 campaign.

Ralph was third on the Condors in scoring last season (26-29-55) after tallying 64 and 25 points respectively during his first two seasons with Bakersfield. “The thing that attracted me to him is that he is a complete player,” said Rockford's Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Steve Martinson. “He is a gritty competitor who can score, hit and he plays sound defense. He's a skilled player yet he's very physical,” continued Martinson.

Last Season Gillies scored 23 goals with 16 assists for 39 points in 63 games. He chipped in with 6 goals and 6 assists during the Jackals playoff run to the Eastern Conference Championship. “Nathan was our Rookie of the Year last season,” stated Jackals Head Coach Todd Brost. “He has an unbelievable work ethic and competes every shift. Nathan brings great leadership, character and grit to the team.”

During his four seasons with the Dutchmen (1997-2001), Ralph tallied 18 goals and notched 22 assists in 122 games. Gillies, who served as team captain during his senior season (2002-2003), played 117 games for the garnet and white, scoring 33 goals and posting 46 assists.

Posted on Aug 2, 2004

Molly Gardner and Maddie Ruggiero were hard at work in an Olin Center computer lab. The room was full of circuit boards, lights,
wires, and computers. The place would be nightmare to the technically
challenged, but the two young women were obviously in their element, engrossed
in their work.  

“Watch this,” Molly said as she typed a series of rapid
commands into the computer while Maddie pressed a button on the circuit board.

As lights on the circuit board begin to flash under a
cartoon picture of a television, an electronic voice began to speak: “I'd like
to watch some television, but no soap operas or talk shows please.” 

They went on to demonstrate several other phrases which were
controlled by buttons and LED lights on the circuit board and convey basic
human needs (using the restroom, feeling hungry, feeling tired, etc.).  Gardner and Ruggiero then explained that
their creation, called a talkbox, is designed to help severely disabled
children communicate. 

This talkbox is exactly the type of project one would
expect to find Union's professors toiling over in an engineering laboratory,
but Gardner and Ruggiero are only high school juniors.

The two young women along with 17 others from Capital
Region high schools participated in the two-week EDGE Program (Educating Girls
for Engineering) from July 19-30. For the two weeks of the program, students
work with professors on a number of engineering-related projects. Students were
chosen for the Northrop Grumman Corp.-sponsored event through a rigorous
application process.

The major project had to do with electronic communication
devices and re-engineered toys to be used by severely disabled children. At the
start of the camp, the girls visited patients at Schenectady's Northwoods at Hilltop Brain Injury Rehabilitation Center to see first-hand the daily challenges disabled children
face. After the two-week educational camp, all toys and devices designed and
built by the students will be donated to the center. The toys were supplied by toy manufacturer Hasbro. Photos of the redesigned toys will be displayed at Hasbro's Pawtucket, R.I. offices.

“Young women are naturally service oriented, and we knew that
they would immediately take to the idea of helping disabled children,” said
Karen Williams, an associate professor of biology, and the program's
director.

Joanne Zagorda, a physics teacher at Shenendehowa High
School in Clifton Park, who spent her second year as an EDGE classroom assistant,
shared Williams' sentiment:  “Meeting
the disabled children was important. It drew the girls into the camp and gave
them a motivating factor. They could specifically say 'I really want to help
that child' and then step into the classroom and do just that.”

While the task of creating the toys tested the girls'
knowledge of computer programming and electronics, their task to re-engineer
toys for the disabled children at Northwoods called for a different style of
engineering along with a fair share of creativity. On the final day of the
program the girls presented their toys to interested onlookers in the Old
Chapel. 

Kaitlyn Driggs, a junior at Maple Hill High School in
Schodack; Kaitlin Gallup, a senior at Scotia-Glenville High School; Natalie
Krumdieck, a senior at Albany Academy for Girls; and Dianne Basirico, a senior
at Shenendehowa High School, re-designed a stuffed animal to make it appeal to
a 7-year-old autistic child at Northwoods. 
The fluffy stuffed fish was overhauled with extra-soft sewn patches, a
squeaking nose, several lights, and a vibrating device that made the fish much
more interactive. 

The girls in the group all agreed that designing the toy
with a specific child in mind made the task both meaningful and fulfilling and
are all planning to pursue engineering when they attend college.

“We did our best to make the toy really stimulate his
senses,” said Krumdieck. “Even though he has limited vision, we knew he loved
lights and tried to create something bright and fun. We were careful to create
something that was very safe and soft to the touch that could really play to
his sense of touch as well.” 

In addition to the engineering projects, participants
received instruction on communication and public speaking to assist in their presentations.
They also had dinner with practicing women engineers from the area and an on-campus
sleepover.

Alison Kolakowski, a senior at Colonie High School, was drawn to the program because of the female
perspective it provided: “Here it is all girls and we get a much different
experience from our high school technology classrooms where it is mostly guys.”

Women constitute 51 percent of the U.S. population and 46 percent of the U.S. labor force. However, among recent graduates (1990 and
later), women represent only 8 to 9 percent of the engineering labor force. While
women constitute a high percentage of some science occupations — more than
half of all psychologists (63 percent) and sociologists (55 percent) are women
— their participation in physics and engineering remains small.

 “The climate for women in engineering has
improved markedly in the past 25 years, especially the last five years, and we
want young girls to realize that a career in a technological field is both
viable and rewarding” said Williams.

The participants also learned that a career in engineering
has its share of good times “I was really surprised by how fast the time went
by. We had such a blast doing the computer programming,” said Krumdieck. “The
whole experience was so much fun.”