Every time Sunday rolls around, Andrew Pramschufer ’96, ’98 MBA can’t wait to get back to work.

“What I’ve really enjoyed in my roles as a CEO is putting together strategies to drive business growth,” he said. “When you grow, it's an awful lot of fun. And I’m extremely happy with what I'm doing. I love every Sunday when I wake up.”

He currently applies that enthusiasm as chief executive officer at HC Pacific. The thriving aerospace supplier is based in Ontario, Calif. That’s just a half-hour drive from his alma mater, but his ties to UC Riverside run deeper than geography. His ex-wife is also a graduate, one of their two sons is finishing up his MBA there, and he returns to campus frequently.

While there are plenty of reasons for Pramschufer’s deep appreciation for the School of Business, he is the first to admit his academic career did not start as successfully as his professional path has proved.

“My first year was horrific,” he said.

Even though he had always done well in high school, at one point in college he was facing academic dismissal.

“I took a year off and then I sent a letter back to UCR and I said, ‘Hey, I got my act together, please give me another shot.’ And they did,” Pramschufer said.

“So failure was a very big part of the beginning part of my college career, and I didn't ever want to experience that again,” he said “I continued that philosophy through business. You're always going to have down points. You just have to be optimistic and try your best to overcome.”
 

Fundamental and leadership skills

His freshman lesson in perseverance paid off. He earned good grades and gained fluency in the functional and technical aspects of business and accounting. Along the way, Pramschufer realized he was simultaneously growing other skills that would reinforce his leadership ability.

“I learned to think about and solve problems not only analytically, but also from an emotional intelligence lens,” he said. “I learned how to become a polished, professional executive. Our instructors taught about what dress codes should look like, how you speak to employees, how to motivate. Quite frankly, as I've gone through my career, these skills are probably more important than the baseline knowledge.”

When he finished his undergraduate degree, Pramschufer considered his professional offers. He and his wife had married and had their first child right out of high school, so he had a young family to consider. After consulting with trusted faculty members, he decided he could improve his options by earning his MBA.

“I applied only to UCR, got accepted into the program, got offered a fellowship and teaching assistantship,” he said. “I quit my job and took the challenge and went full-force into getting my MBA in two years.”

That proved to be the right decision, opening doors to a series of leadership positions with increasing responsibilities. When he started at HC Pacific, it was a $9 million company that was losing half a million dollars a year, he said.

“Today we'll do $65 million of revenue and have become a dominant player in military distribution. We hired folks as we grew, and we were able to sell the company,” Pramschufer said, noting the new owner, Proponent, is an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) company. “So now we're all employee owners and we have some wonderful ownership and leadership that have helped provide more capital, and we're continuing our growth.”
 

‘The harder you work, the luckier you get’

Every job on the way up wasn’t so rewarding and the path wasn’t always easy, he said. So his advice to anyone starting out in business: Keep in mind what you really want from life.

“There have been a company or two where I knew I needed to get out, where I didn't have that feeling on a Sunday,” he said. “I've always thought that the harder you work, the luckier you get, and that really is the truth. But there also are sacrifices you have to make as well. My biggest advice is that you have got to really think about what's important to you.”

Staying close to UCR has provided Pramschufer with greater appreciation for the School of Business, both in his own time and now, as his son studies at the A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management.

“Around the ’96 through ’98 timeframe, we were small and nimble, the teachers were excellent, and I got a great education,” he said. “Today, it's like a steroid injection, with the number of students, the new School of Business building that’s best in class, the technological sophistication, the course offerings. It's an entirely different school, and I mean that in the most positive sense.”
 

‘A willingness to learn’

Pramschufer also sees a lot of positives in the growing Inland Empire and Riverside County economies. He hopes to capitalize on connections to UCR to help drive his company’s continued success.

“Nobody does anything for an entirely unselfish reason, so part of me wanting to be involved with the school is I really want to hire more graduates from UCR,” he said. “We have hired a few and we hope to hire a few more.”

What is he looking for when recruiting candidates? Some of the same attributes that helped him advance in his own career, including perseverance through adversity and the hard work that leads to better fortunes.

“The most important thing to me is a willingness to learn — the fortitude to take something, to be accountable for something, to be OK to make decisions, humble enough to make mistakes and learn from them,” Pramschufer said.

“In the business environment today, you can bring in the very best, the very brightest and you just mentor them along,” he said. “You want them to make mistakes. You want them to learn for themselves. That's very important to me. I want somebody who is going to fly on their own eventually.”

The most important thing to remember — the key to that Sunday eagerness to get back to work — is keeping a focus on what you want from life, he said.

“In the end, the title and the money mean nothing. It’s just about your happiness.”