Mr. Robert Medema

Biography

Professor Medema has twenty six years of experience in business and fifteen years of experience in teaching at the collegiate level. He taught at Calvin College and Trinity Christian College in the mid-seventies and returned to Calvin in 2000 because he believes this is precisely where God intends for him to be at this point in his life. He has worked as a CPA; held management positions in accounting and marketing in two fortune 500 corporations; developed a successful business with others in the direct response marketing industry and developed a successful business in the finance industry as sole shareholder. Since 2002 he has been serving as a member of the board of directors of an international corporation involved in the manufacture and sale of emergency lighting products.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, professor Medema serves as a faculty advisor to the Calvin Enterprise Center and as faculty advisor for the Calvin Entrepreneurship Club.

Professor Medema believes that it is his responsibility to help students identify and develop skills that will enable them to attain positions of influence necessary to be effective agents of renewal in the business community. He believes that Christians should be humble but not passive and that piety should not be equated with poverty. He believes wealth and influence are cause for thanksgiving and stewardship, but it is absolutely imperative that students understand that such things are not to be considered as measures of true success. Such a perspective will deprive individuals of the sense of fulfillment that God intends for them. Success is better defined as identifying and developing God-given talents and using those talents with enthusiasm to the best of one's ability to further His kingdom. The business community offers great opportunities for that purpose.

Professor Medema has a strong interest in athletics. In addition to having been an athlete in high school and college, he has coached young men in little league baseball and YMCA basketball and served as the Calvin College Faculty Athletics Representative to the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletics Association and the National Collegiate Athletics Organization for nine years.