May, 2009

By Jonnie Martin

When Rob Abramovitz was a young scholar, his path seemed straight and smooth.  Then the path began to twist and buckle and Rob experienced exhilarating highs (as CEO of a multi-million dollar manufacturer of his own patent) and desperate lows (as survivor to a disease that crippled and almost killed him).  Recently he has chosen a less traveled road as an Orthodox Jew pursuing a Master of Divinity at Catholic Marylhurst.

Most students at Marylhurst are only faintly aware that it is the oldest Catholic university in Oregon, founded in 1893 by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.  Only those students in Religious Studies would even care about the Catholic affiliation.

Oddly enough it is not religion but Rob’s interest in business that brought him to Marylhurst.  Over the years, Rob’s jobs included Director of Business Operations for the University of Portland, Manager for an international Techtronix Division, Business Consultant to a Tokyo firm, and CEO of his own company.

Despite the busy schedule, Rob managed to run a 40-acre farm in Clatskani and to hike 50 days a year.  Along these rugged trails, he contracted lyme disease—not critical if treated in the first 30 days; an assault to joints, heart and nervous system if left untreated. It took years to get diagnosed, during which Rob had brain seizures brought on by heart arrest.  He now wears a Pacemaker, often walks with a cane, and has his bad days.

Rob has his good days as well, and spends some of that time refining a humanistic management model that will become the core of his consulting support for CEOs. Before launching the new business, Rob felt drawn to specialized studies of the wholistic man, unavailable in his other advanced studies:  an MS in Math (ABT) and an MBA.  “Only theology looks at the whole person,” he decided before enrolling at Marylhurst.

An observant Orthodox Jew and a Hebrew Scholar, Rob is a religious man who might have gone to Jewish Seminary had he not found that road blocked (Rob’s wife is a practicing Catholic).  There are no Master’s in Hebrew Letters on the West coast, and so Rob found himself exploring the ecumenical nature of the programs at Marylhurst, which advertises itself as “a safe place to ask questions.” 

This road has not been without its bumps; Rob and Marylhurst are not a perfect match.  While the MA in Applied Theology is purposefully inter-faith in its structure, the Master in Divinity includes Catholic-Christian seminary-type studies.  This same challenge has faced other graduates (students who were Buddhist, Islamic, Native American).

Still, Rob has taken from and contributed to the Master’s program.  He is about halfway through the course of studies and this summer he writes his thesis around the Jewish prayer of Shema which commands the worshiper to “listen down to your core,” a key part of Rob’s faith, and the center of his management model. Rob continues to write a business book on the model and to craft the lecture and mentoring components of his business plan.