It would be fair to say that during his UO years Paul Walton '04 was slightly distracted.
It's not that he wasn't content to be a liberal arts student after a handful of years
spent sampling several careers, including golf course maintenance, bagel baking, and
commercial aviation. It's just that every spare moment he had, Walton found that his
head was in a cloud, and not just your average Eugene rain cloud, but a cloud of entrepreneurial dreams.
“I always had some business idea floating in my head,” he says. None of
Walton’s imaginings ever seemed financially or tactically feasible, though—
until one rainy day midway through his sophomore year while studying on campus.
“It suddenly occurred to me that I’d seen tons of things with the UO logo
on them, but no computer mice,” he says, his eyes flashing at the recollection.
Walton hurried back to the apartment he shared with two other students and began some
ardent web- and phonebased
research. “I tried to track down other schools making logo mice,” he
says. “I couldn’t find anyone anywhere in the U.S. that was making them. ”
Walton did what any enterprising young person who knew absolutely nothing about manufacturing, shipping,
licensing, or marketing—yet who felt he’d stumbled on to a fabulous and potentially
profitable idea—would do. He went to the nearest big box store and bought ten of their
cheapest computer mice and a half-gallon of green paint. His talent as an artist, Walton quickly discovered,
did not match his ambition. “The paint dripped, the colors ran, they looked
awful,” he says. Next, he tried purchasing logo stickers from the bookstore, but the
curvature of the mice ruined the effect. Walton wasn’t daunted. After obtaining
a business license, naming his business Rhinotronix, and acquiring a
trademark licensing agreement from the University, he found a manufacturer in Taiwan who agreed to produce 2,000
mice bearing the UO logo. “It took five months for them to show up,” he says. “The waiting was horrible.” Even more
horrible was the moment when Walton — who along with several pickupdriving friends rendezvoused with the
delivery truck at a rest area south of Eugene—took a first peek at his product. “The mice were this faded lime green,
and the logo was a light yellow you could barely see.” Walton was crushed.
Luckily, the manufacturer agreed to replace the order at no cost—except for
the price of another five-month wait. Never one to twiddle his thumbs, Walton set out to market his wares,
despite their disappointing hue. He convinced Curtis Smith, UO Bookstore buyer, to stock a few logo mice. When the two bumped into each other a week
later, Smith pointed a finger at Walton and said, “I want to talk to you.” The
mice had flown off the shelves. Smith wanted 180 more. Encouraged, Walton began peddling
mice to computer stores up and down I-5. Within a few months, he’d sold all of
the first shipment and received the next —this time, sporting a precisely perfect
Duck green. By the middle of his junior year, Walton was fielding orders like crazy while hitting up
other universities for licensing rights. “Yeah,” he says, when asked the obvious question, “I still
went to class.” Walton, never willing to ditch his degree plans despite the savory taste of
success on his tongue, added a business minor and plodded determinedly towards graduation.
Still, he spent more time in the UO’s Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship than in the library,
and though the diploma he received last spring reads “Sociology,” Walton claims he
really earned a “Trial by Fire” degree. “It was a huge learning process,” says
Walton, who believes that, “when you have a passion, you can learn anything.You just have to ask a lot of questions
and not get a big head.” While fielding Walton’s questions, faculty at the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship
recognized the extent of this student turned-businessman’s aspiration and
initiative. He won the 2004 Entrepreneur of the Year award—the first ever granted to a student who minored (not majored)
in business. Rhinotronix, which Walton moved to Redmond, after graduation, now employs twenty sales representatives and
will open an office and warehouse soon. Business has grown 300 percent per year each of the last three years; half a million
orders are expected for 2004. Walton now produces mice for fifty-six universities and expects that number to
climb to ninety next year, and the company also makes customized logo mice for many other organizations
and businesses. It’s not surprising that Walton — thirty years old, CEO, homeowner, and
newlywed — is still full of ideas. Soon, Rhinotronix will start producing mouse
pads, wireless accessories, and other office supplies, but even that is small
potatoes compared to Walton’s longterm vision. “I want to become a huge
sports merchandising company,” he says. More immediately, Walton is set on marketing
to another UO alum — Phil Knight. “Our stuff would be perfect for
Nike,” he says. Look out, Phil. You may not have seen someone this determined
since, well, yourself.—Kim Cooper Findling’93 for Oregon Quarterly.
research. “I tried to track down other schools making logo mice,” he
says. “I couldn’t find anyone anywhere in the U.S. that was making them. ”
Walton did what any enterprising young person who knew absolutely nothing about manufacturing, shipping,
licensing, or marketing—yet who felt he’d stumbled on to a fabulous and potentially
profitable idea—would do. He went to the nearest big box store and bought ten of their
cheapest computer mice and a half-gallon of green paint. His talent as an artist, Walton quickly discovered,
did not match his ambition. “The paint dripped, the colors ran, they looked
awful,” he says. Next, he tried purchasing logo stickers from the bookstore, but the
curvature of the mice ruined the effect. Walton wasn’t daunted. After obtaining
a business license, naming his business