Entrepreneurial Award

Patricia A. O. Trompeter, Bus Ad ’89
Greenwich, Conn.

Marquette prepared Patti Trompeter for a career as a business leader. Currently CEO of Sphere 3D, she has expertise in leading corporate turnarounds, as well as mergers and acquisitions. “I love the excitement of learning a new technology,” she says, “and figuring out all of its applications in industry.”

Marquette prepared Patti Trompeter for a career as a business leader. Currently CEO of Sphere 3D, she has expertise in leading corporate turnarounds, as well as mergers and acquisitions. Previously she served as CFO of GE Capital IT Solutions, North America, and is founder and managing director of Ceres Capital Ventures, LLC, an independent investment and advisory firm growing innovative technologies in emerging markets. “I love the excitement of learning a new technology,” she says, “and figuring out all of its applications in industry.”

Her first visit to Marquette also involved a sense of discovery, Patti says: “I fell in love. It was a feeling of walking on campus, exhaling, and thinking, ‘I will do well here.’” Those years fostered a desire to give back, and she looks for opportunities to mentor women, minorities, and first-generation college students, in part because of her own history. “I was number 23 of 26 foster kids in my family, number six of six kids adopted by my parents, and the first in my family to graduate university,” she says.

"Marquette taught me to recognize we are part of many communities, to respect myself and others, and to raise my amazing children with the goal of making the world a better place,” she says.

She is moved by this award. “The place that gave you roots, taught you to think, to be a good person, to make a difference is now looking at you and saying, ‘We are proud of you,’ Patti says. “It’s humbling and brings tears to my eyes.”

Name someone (past or present) with whom you’d like to have dinner.
Mom and Dad. I would thank them and ask them all the life questions I didn't ask before they passed. I would also apologize. Perhaps they weren't as dumb as I thought when I was a teenager.

Name a Marquette faculty or staff member who had an impact on you, and how.
Dr. Fabio Sdogati was my first economics teacher, in 1985. He started the class with a lecture titled “What is Money”. It was the first time I was taught to think on a macro level. It started me questioning the boundaries and processes that I had been taught to that point. It was a pivotal moment when I learned to think and apply my knowledge.

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