Her plans have worked out fine

For Jordanna Chord, four years of studies at Gonzaga University have produced the kind of results some people produce over a long career.That’s just the way she is, say her mentors and classmates.

The 23-year-old senior will graduate next month, then start a job in Kirkland as a software engineer at Google. She turned down a similar job at Microsoft.

“She’s a no-nonsense person,” said Paul Buller, director of the Hogan Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at GU. “She’s very insightful. She works hard. Jordanna is definitely a successful example of a Hogan student.”

The Hogan program takes bright, motivated students and helps them develop their creative leadership skills, said Buller. Some go into business, some go on to graduate studies and some turn to nonprofits.

Most Hogan majors don’t earn a business degree. Chord, for instance, is a computer science major. And Buller predicts that Chord, who came to GU from Anchorage, will combine her business instincts with a strong commitment to having a positive impact on her community.

“Marrying those two impulses isn’t something people think of doing, but for Jordanna, that’s important,” he said.

On Friday Chord finds out if she concludes her Hogan and GU career with yet another major achievement. Last week she and another GU Hogan senior, Becky Oelrich, were among three teams that made it to the finals in the 2006 business plan competition. Forty-four teams from GU, Washington State University, Whitworth College and Eastern Washington University took part in the competition this year.

If they win Friday afternoon, they’ll split a $10,000 cash prize awarded by GU with grant money from a Seattle foundation and local sponsors.

Whatever prize Chord earns on Friday, she’ll still walk away with an impressive GU business competition resumé. In 2004 she won top prizes in two separate business-plan categories. She won $5,000 outright in one category and a share of $5,000 prize in the second.

In the 2005 business plan she won second place in one category, earning her another $3,500.

“People think I do this for the money. I don’t. These are business ideas that are close to my heart,” Chord said.

She’s used the money to take care of bills, primarily, adding, “I’m not from money, so I need to take care of all my living expenses.”

One of the her 2004 business plan ideas is already operating: Rising Times, a publication focused on issues affecting the homeless, is now operated by AmeriCorps.

Last year’s online mentoring idea, Mentor Partnering Resource, has been taken over and will be launched in a beta version later this year by Spokane Falls Community College.

Chord’s adviser in the 2005 competition was Jeannine Marx, owner of Spokane-based placement firm JM Recruiting.

“To me, Jordanna is exemplary,” said Marx. “She’s bright, hard-working and innovative. She thinks like an entrepreneur, out of the box, and not like just a software engineer.”

The second business plan Chord was involved with that won in 2004, a game company called GamerZunion, is also well beyond the drawing board. It’s raised nearly $75,000 in funding and hopes to launch later this year. Chord has no hand in that company anymore.

This year, Chord and Oelrich proposed an online game focused on K-through-8 education.

Despite the appeal of working on the West side of the state, Chord said she’d prefer to come back and develop a tech company in Spokane.

“I’ll give Google a year or so,” she said. She chose that company over Microsoft because she’s likely to be surrounded by more newcomers in Kirkland than if she went to work in Redmond for Microsoft.

“I should be able to have more of an impact there because of that,” she said.

Beyond starting a tech company, Chord said it’s important for her to encourage young women to pursue careers in technology and the sciences. A big reason for her getting the Google job was attending the first Google-sponsored “women in engineering” conference held in Mountain View, Calif., in January, she said.

“Young women need to hear it from other women, that they have the choice of getting into those areas” of engineering and the sciences, she said.