In 1968, when he was 20, Louis Slangen ’69 left his family’s farm in the Netherlands for America. He brought along two suitcases, $200, and a game plan. After spending his senior year as an exchange student at the University of Puget Sound, his plan was to go on to earn an MBA, work in the United States for a few years, and return to the Netherlands. But the best laid plans often go awry — and sometimes, he says, they turn out even better.
Slangen says his time as a Logger under the watchful eye of the late Dutch-born Puget Sound professor John Prins was transformative. Prins had made it possible for Slangen to be in the Dutch Nyenrode/Puget Sound exchange program and taught Slangen’s favorite class, a salesmanship principles class. His motto: “No matter what your profession, you are a salesman, whether you like it or not.” Meanwhile, the university’s relatively small campus made adjusting to a new culture very easy.
