Professor with Village of Florida ties to speak at Nobel Forum
By Abby Wolf Florida Professor Robert Sicina, who grew up pulling onions from the Black Dirt fields in the Village of Florida, will bring his professional expertise to bear as he delivers his speech, Business Innovators as Pillars of Peace, when he attends the Nobel Peace Prize Forum in Minnesota this month.
The forum is an annual event that brings together Nobel Peace Prize laureates, civic leaders and scholars with students and other citizens and is hosted by one of four Mid-Western colleges that were founded by Norwegian immigrants. The University of Minnesotas Humphrey School for Public Affairs will host this years conference.
Sicina, whose late parents were lifelong residents of the village of Florida (They lived on Glenmere Avenue, he said) is professor and executive in residence at American Universitys Kogod School of Business in Washington, D.C.
As executive in residence, hes a professor without a PhD, but one with much professional experience, and teaches both undergrads and graduate students.
Humble beginnings in the Black Dirt
Like most kids, I did my normal school routine, Sicina said in a recent telephone interview. But on weekends and all summer, my sisters and mother and I raised onions in the Black Dirt - weeding, grading and packaging. The lighter work started when I was about six years old.
When I was 11 years old, we harvested onions manually with toppers (a scissor-like tool). I got an infection in my left hand and came close to losing my finger, but didnt.
I worked side-by-side with migrant workers, did the same work they did in the 50s and 60s, before the Great Society (of President Lyndon Johnson).
What I learned from my parents, Sicina added, was not to judge people by the color of their skin: Serious people worked hard – if you didnt work hard, you werent serious.
Sicina went to St. Josephs on Glenmere Avenue, then S.S. Seward Academy, where he graduated third out of 32 in his class.
I remember Kay Durland and Robin Rosenberg were first and second, Sicina said. Were having our 50th reunion this year and Im hoping to attend; I havent seen most of these people in a very long time.
His cousin, Gussy, has spent his career with Jimmy Sturr, Sicina said, and recalled both his mother and father lived near extended families of about a dozen siblings each; his mother lived for 70 years in the same house.
During his long and varied career, Sicina has moved 18 times in his life.
My mother was afraid I couldnt hold a job, he recounted, laughing. I dont think she understood what I did.
Still, he has fond memories of his childhood home: Great people, great town, a great way to grow up.
A path to teaching Sicinas path to teaching was a long and torturous route after spending much of his career in the private sector in financial services. According to the American University web site, Sicina has 30 years experience in senior executive positions at Citibank, American Express and various other entrepreneurial ventures.
Hes spent time in China and several Latin American countries, as well as in Iran (during a stint in the Air Force).
But he really wanted to teach, considering it to be a capstone on (his) career.
One of his courses is entitled, Teaching From Failure. His students apply concepts learned from the lack of success of others. A bonus, he added: I never run out of fresh material.
His path to the Nobel forum came about as a result of his involvement with U.S. State Department programs in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, helping local people set up businesses there.
He is currently working on similar projects in Tunisia that would involve water bottling, a vegetable-processing factory and organic farming.
Peaces two pillars Sicina maintains that there are two key pillars to peace: Freedom and economic opportunity. Freedom would seem obvious to many. As to economic opportunity, If people believe through their efforts that theyll have a better opportunity than (they have) today, and (even more so) that their kids will have a better life.
He cited the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but not in the way youd expect. Giving away millions of dollars is nice, but is not what makes Gates a hero to Sicina. Building Microsoft makes him a hero (Gates) helped make people more productive. Similarly, the late Steve Jobs was a hero for creating Apple, in Sicinas view.
Whether in Tunisia, the U.S. or anywhere else, Its fundamentally about creating opportunity job creation. Sicina hopes that his audience will buy my thesis that business innovators are truly builders of peace.
Sicina believes that peace and improvements to peoples quality of life ultimately are best accomplished with smaller efforts, versus the government imposing (solutions) from outside. Sometimes (government agencies) end up either solving the wrong problem, or not solving the problem at all. Its best to work with people on the ground and help them to develop the solutions that work best for them.
Free market Even as conflicts flare around the globe – especially in places like Iran and Syria – Sicina is convinced that his thesis of economic opportunity for regular people will lead to greater freedom and, ultimately, peace.
The people (in Iran) are suffering dramatically through economic deprivation, due to sanctions imposed by the world – those who suffer greatest are the old and those at the margins that will bring the government (of the ayatollahs) down.
The man whose act of self-immolation in Tunisia led to the Arab Spring was frustrated, Sicina said. They (the Tunisian government) wouldnt let him run a fruit stand.
As to China, he added, The folks who most carefully watched the Arab Spring are the Communist government. Thirty to forty million Chinese died in the Great Famine. (The current Communist leadership) let people out of their cages and told them they could make money and keep it – you cant put that genie back in the bottle.
Ultimately, unrest, Sicina contends – whether abroad or here in the U.S. as part of the Occupy movement – is due to lack of economic opportunity. On the other hand, he added, Freedom means the freedom to fail.
Sicina is a Free Marketeer. The free market will sort out all issues relating to labor and goods. As the son of sharecroppers, I worked on my hands and knees picking onions in the Black Dirt, sweating from the time I was 5, through college.
He added, however, that sometimes, things are tough and people need a hand.