UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — When Frederik Wenzel walked into Linda Treviño’s ethics and social responsibility class some 30 years ago, he had no idea that it would influence the direction of his life.
Today, the Penn State Smeal College of Business management alumnus considers Treviño, distinguished professor of organizational behavior and ethics, a trusted mentor and friend.
“Dr. Treviño has always been passionate about bringing real-world experience into the classroom to teach business ethics,” Wenzel said. “That showed me that ethics is more than a theoretical model and inspired me in my own career.”
To honor her lifetime of work and her impact on his life and career, Wenzel and his wife, Sonja, recently made a $125,000 gift to create the Linda Treviño Excellence in Business Ethics Program Fund Endowment in the Smeal College of Business.
Working through the Tarriff Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, the fund will encourage Smeal faculty across disciplines to work collaboratively to develop and improve business ethics education at Smeal.
Center director Michelle Darnell, who is also director of honor and integrity at Smeal, said that she plans to establish a faculty cohort that meets regularly to consider contemporary, practical issues and solutions to ethical dilemmas and to discuss how faculty can integrate ethics into their course materials. She said funding will be available for cohort members to attend or present at relevant academic conferences.
The Wenzels’ gift will also allow the Tarriff Center to create an annual teaching award to recognize the most effective integration of ethics and corporate social responsibility into the business curriculum. Criteria will include engagement with business leaders, innovative pedagogical techniques and focus on the practical skills and knowledge required for ethical leadership.
“Frederik and Sonja’s gift will help make ethics a stronger element of the Smeal experience, and I am incredibly grateful for their support,” Darnell said.
Treviño said that she was humbled that the Wenzels chose to name the fund after her.
“Frederik was an exceptional student, and I was confident he would become a successful and ethical leader,” Treviño said. “He graciously shared his experience leading his organization through the pandemic with my students recently, and it was impactful because Frederik is so authentic and solid in his integrity.”
Treviño said she is honored by the gift made in her name and enthusiastic about the initiatives that it will make possible.
“The Wenzels’ gift means a lot to me,” she said. “I am excited about the future of business ethics education at Smeal, and I look forward to watching how this gift will contribute to its continued development.”
Wenzel earned a degree in management from Penn State in 1991. After graduation, he began his career at Bauer Compressors, where he became vice president for finance. He earned a master of business administration from William and Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business in 1998 and was then named executive vice president and CIO of Weidmüller Holding AG & Co. in Germany. Upon his return to the U.S., he worked for Thermo Electron (now Thermo Fisher Scientific) and then ran a global water treatment business for Siemens.
For the past 14 years, he has been employed by Schuetz Container Systems, a company that provides sustainable packaging systems and is currently president and CEO of the Americas region.
Wenzel was named Smeal Outstanding Young Alumnus in 2001.
In 2021, he was appointed to the Tarriff Center’s inaugural advisory board. Board members help guide strategic planning of the center and engage with students and other stakeholders, building opportunities for collaboration within the Smeal community.
Sonja Wenzel earned a degree in accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1998. She worked as a tax accountant until the couple moved to Germany and taught business English during their time abroad.
Sonja Wenzel, who shares her husband’s passion for Penn State and has never met a Penn Stater that she did not like, said the couple wanted to help change the way Smeal students are learning about ethics and social responsibility.
“Frederik and I believe it’s critically important to bring business and industry into a relationship with academia in order to make the theoretical concepts students are learning in the classroom seem real,” she said.
Wenzel added that, in his experience, students enjoy the connection with alumni.
“I am very passionate about bringing practical experience into the classroom. It has been tremendously rewarding for me to be able to do that, and I hope to see Penn State and Smeal do more of it in the future. That’s really what inspired Sonja and me to make this gift,” he said.
Gifts to the Penn State Smeal College of Business will advance "A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence," a focused campaign that seeks to elevate Penn State’s position as a leading public university in a world defined by rapid change and global connections. With the support of alumni and friends, “A Greater Penn State” seeks to fulfill the three key imperatives of a 21st-century public university: keeping the doors to higher education open to hardworking students regardless of financial well-being; creating transformative experiences that go beyond the classroom; and impacting the world by serving communities and fueling discovery, innovation, and entrepreneurship. To learn more about “A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence,” visit greaterpennstate.psu.edu.