Linus Pauling, Dick Fosbury, Mercades Bates, Ralen Jones, Nicole Scott, Harley Jessup and Peggy Cherng. 

While some of these names need no explanation, these Oregon State University alumni are just some of those who have made their mark on the world after getting their start in the very same seats we have sat in. 

Beyond the Nobel prize winning scientists and game changing athletes, OSU has been home to many individuals who have innovated in the fields of nutrition and business, fitness, art and community. 

Mercades Bates

Mercades Bates may be known better by another name you’d see on the front of cake mix and frosting. Bates, a 1936 OSU graduate, was the vice president of General Mills, where she spearheaded the Betty Crocker brand. 

Bates graduated with a bachelors in food and nutrition from the College of Home Economics, which has changed over the years to become the present day College of Health.  

Following graduation Bates worked as a supervisor of home services at a gas company, entrepreneur of her own food advertising business, food editor, all leading up to director of Betty Crocker Kitchens in 1964.  

Although Bates died in 1997, OSU students can continue to see her legacy beyond the cursive letters and red spoon while walking through the north end of the Corvallis campus at Bates hall. 

The hall bearing her name was formerly the Mercedes A. Bates Family Study Center at the time of opening thanks to Bates’ three million dollar donation to OSU in 1992, which at the time was the largest single donation the university had received. 

Nicole Scott

Graduating with a degree in exercise and sport science with an option in fitness program management from OSU in 2003, Nicole Scott has gone on to bring together community service and the fitness industry. 

According to Scott her first taste of being involved in the fitness world and working with nonprofits came while she was an OSU student as a part of her experience with professors and the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association. 

“They didn’t just teach the subject on (a topic), they were out there being strength and conditioning coaches, they were out there running the businesses,” Scott said. “… I think that’s a really important component when you look at who your teachers are. I think they give a very different lens and (not just) a pure academic perspective of it.”

Now working as a key account manager with Planet Fitness, Scott places and helps to design new equipment for Planet Fitness franchises. She also, however, has looked to fill the needs of a unique community, access to gym equipment for first responders. 

“I’ve really worked with educating people in the fitness industry about the benefits of donating their equipment to first responders and supporting first responders,” Scott said.  

Scott has been a part of getting nearly five million dollars worth of fitness equipment donated to first responders and boys and girls clubs across the country.  

“Health and fitness, even as small as breath or an empowered movement can deeply affect somebody’s ability to live a healthy and thriving life in such a dire situation,” Scott said. 

Ralen Jones 

Class of 2013 graduate with degrees in business management and business entrepreneurship with an option in international business, Ralen Jones, has gone on to directly apply his degrees in running businesses and companies, plural, in Oregon. 

Jones recalls an interviewing course he took that initially he saw as a topic somewhat disconnected from what he wanted to do but looking back, Jones holds skills and memories from that course that are some of the most transferable and impactful.

How to interview, learning from different places through study abroad and keeping in contact with connections are what Jones says he has taken away from OSU and into the world as a business owner. 

“It’s not necessarily always about what you know, but more about who you know, and it’s a little cliche, but it really holds true,” Jones said. 

Outside of his nine-to-five day job with the Black American Chamber of Commerce, Jones started PDX Black Excellence, a connection network and creative agency supporting and connecting the Black community in Portland. Jones is also co-owner of a new clothing brand boutique called Mercury League.  

“While in school, …when you’re uncertain about where your path is going to go, or how you’re going to get there, I would say pay attention to the things that interest you the most,” Jones said. “Because it’s going to be those things – the things that you wake up wanting to do.”

Harley Jessup

As a Corvallis native and 1976 graduate with a bachelors of fine art in graphic design at OSU, Harley Jessup said he “practically lived on the second floor of Fairbanks hall” in his 2018 commencement speaker address. 

Today though, Jessup has gone far beyond Fairbanks hall in his work as a production designer for Pixar Animation Studios, working on films such as Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, and academy award winner CoCo. 

“I jumped at every opportunity to do what I considered ‘real work’, designing Memorial Union posters, Barometer cartoons, literary magazine covers, and university catalogs,” Jessup said in his commencement address reflecting on his time at OSU. 

Jessup began his career working for Korty films followed by an art director at Lucasfilm then, Industrial Light and Magic where he won an academy award in special effects for his work on “Innerspace”. 

“Being keenly observant and open to the unexpected is key to telling an authentic and original story,” Jessup said in his commencement speech reflecting on his work at Pixar. 

Peggy Cherng

OSU students can often see a large line around lunch time in the Memorial Union Commons for Panda Express. Little do they know though, we have an OSU alumni to thank for the food. 

Peggy Cherng graduated from OSU in 1971 with a bachelors in applied mathematics was born in today’s Myanmar and moved to China as a child and transferred to OSU from a University in Kansas. 

While in Kansas Cherng met who would be her husband and later co-founder of Panda Express. 

Peggy left her career in engineering in the defense industry to focus on helping the business of her husband, Andrew Cherng’s family restaurant. That restaurant then grew with the development of orange chicken, Peggy running the business and personal sides and Andrew running growth and strategy. 

Today Panda Express operates more than 2,300 restaurants and Cherng appreciates the foundation that OSU gave her. 

“It is important to me that you know that I am grateful for the education I got at Oregon State,” Cherng said in an article from the spring 2023 Oregon Stater magazine.