Featured Alumni

Fred Owen
BBA 1953, MBA 1963
Member of the first MBA Graduating Class

Fred Owen exemplifies what it means to be a Gonzaga University Alumnus. His passion for ethics and his understanding that people are fulfilled not by money but through achievement, resonates through his professional life to this day.

Fred’s Gonzaga journey began as an undergraduate in the School of Business in 1949 where he was a member of Gonzaga’s highly respected Men’s Glee Club and was selected to the National Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu. After earning a BBA in Economics and Business, Fred served in the Navy during the Korean Conflict and later worked as a manager of human resources and line operations in government and private industry.

After several years, Fred returned to Gonzaga University to study Law. Three semesters into his law degree, Fred decided to enroll in the new Graduate School of Business where he earned his MBA as a member of the first graduating class. Although ethics was not explicitly taught in the early years of the program, as it is today, Fred recalls that it was an underlying theme in all of his classes. He argues that much, if not all, of his professional work is founded on the principles of ethics and rationality taught by Gonzaga professors.

Effective management, which recognizes that personal achievement is more important than compensation, is Fred’s primary professional passion. Throughout his career, he has steadfastly encouraged public and private sector employers to understand the importance of meaningful work. This is particularly evident in his extensive work with the issue of pay equity. His first project was an objective approach to achieving equity in compensation between women and men who performed work of similar value. While on the surface this sounds like a straightforward compensation issue, the problem with equity encountered by Fred was a systematic under-valuing of work done, in this case, by women.

The project became a landmark study that was considered for its fairness by the United States’ Supreme Court and has become the principal reference point for organizations in government and private industry when employers determine objective compensation policies without reference to gender. Subsequently, Fred performed similar work for the federal Government of Canada, helping to establish equitable compensation for approximately 200,000 employees. He performed compensation design and development for several other institutions of government, higher education, and private industry across North America.

Fred continues to provide services in the field of human resource management to government, higher education, and private industry employers. His professional life is clearly indicative of the deep commitment to the principles developed during his years at Gonzaga University.

Gonzaga left an indelible mark on Fred Owen, who, in turn, has left his mark on the world. It is with great pride that we acknowledge Fred Owen, prestigious member of the first class of Gonzaga University’s Graduate School of Business!

Reconnect with Fred at fsowen@comcast.net.

Ahmed Khalfan, MBA '05



Khalifa Deputy Manager
Kuwait Finance House

My life changed drastically after completing my MBA at Gonzaga, I got engaged to the love of my life two months after returning back home. I began building our home while struggling to meet the difficult objectives set for my new job then as Head of Marketing at the local telecommunications service provider. After a year, I was offered a job at the second largest Islamic bank in the world. The job has been very demanding and still is. 

A few months after moving into our new home, we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Zain, six months.  Before having Zain we did a lot of traveling. We visited Rome, Spain, Portugal, the UK, and Kuala Lumpur. My best trip was visiting the Colosseum in Rome. That's when I realized I have a soft spot for history. I really believe that a person can learn more from history than anything else.

My career during the past five years witnessed a major transformation from officer, to supervisor, to assistant manager and now deputy manager. The responsibilities of course kept increasing and become more complex in nature. But I still believe that I have a ways to go before sticking to a specific position for a longer period. My biggest fear is to be forgotten. This is my motivator, my tool to strive for a better role in my career and in my personal life. 

I owe most of my development in these few short years first and foremost to God and then to my wonderful family and finally to the experience I received during my MBA at Gonzaga. I will always feel in debt and would love to continue being in touch with the Alumni and especially '05 graduates. God bless you all and I will always have Gonzaga in my heart.