Botak Jones Goes Back to School

FF Fashion

Mon, Jun 01, 2009
The New Paper
By Elysa Chen

HE MAY be more comfortable in a kitchen, but Mr Bernie Utchenik, 57, who first started out as a hawker in a canteen in Tuas, is now giving talks to students in polytechnics and universities.

He was speaking to The New Paper after giving a talk on Wednesday about setting up businesses in Asia to students of the Asian Business Study Abroad Programme at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM).


Mr Utchenik, more famously known as Botak Jones, now has 11 outlets selling American-style food located in several parts of Singapore, including hawker centres and canteens.

He declined to comment on the company's annual turnover.

He said: 'I don't have a PhD, I'm not a guru. I'm just someone who has been there and done that. It doesn't mean that I know everything. All I can do is tell my story and what I've learnt from it.

'Sometimes, real-life experiences have a more profound meaning to students than a case study in a textbook.'

Although he gives talks in classrooms, most of what he knows comes from what life has taught him.

Mr Utchenik, 57, who dropped out of the Wayne State University in Michigan when he was just a year shy of graduation, said: 'I stopped going to university because I felt that it was not going to help me market myself.'

At 26, after finding out that he had an incurable medical condition - Chron's disease, which affects the gastrointestinal tract - he sold everything he had, bought a motorcycle, and travelled throughout the United States, helping one of his friends run a factory in Florida, before running a ski lodge with another friend.

Mr Utchenik said: 'It's these little vignettes of experience that really helped me. Driving along those highways and dropping by on those farming communities and diners was an education in itself.'

He came to Singapore in 1990, while working for an oil service company, but entered the food and beverage business in 1996.

In setting up his own business, Mr Utchenik has had to be an economist, a human resources executive, a sociologist, a political analyst, and even did a radio voice-over for Botak Jones advertisements.

Having lived in Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia, Mr Utchenik, who is thinking of developing his business in China, said that he studies a country's economy and political stability before choosing to start his business there.

He also doubles up as a human resource executive when he motivates his 200 employees, and communicates his company's vision to them.

Still, he is wary of being called an 'expert', or a 'guru'.

Life lessons

He said: 'I've pulled from all the things I've learned during my life, from my dreams of going into advertising, to my dreams of becoming a musician... even the time I prepared a salad for a friend's barbecue, combined all these experiences, and used them all in my business.'

Dr Bob Foo, associate faculty for SIM, said that Mr Utchenik's educational qualifications are not important.

He said: 'What's important is his spirit. Despite the competitive marketplace here, he has positioned himself correctly, and achieved success.

'He is an inspiration to young students. This is why I invited him to speak to them.'

Said student Michael Bollen, 20, from the University of Buffalo in the United States: 'It was very educational.

'Who'd be a better teacher than someone who's had both success and failure?'