Rodney Paseka Video Bio
As a Georgetown, Minn., native, Rodney Paseka was a self-described free-range town kid who attended a two-room schoolhouse with six classmates. From grades 7 through 12, he was bussed to Moorhead High School. When he turned 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force.
After returning home, Paseka became the first member of his family to attend college and enrolled at MSUM on the GI Bill. During his time in school, he worked 30 hours a week to provide for his wife and child, but he also considered school his job, a responsibility he did not take lightly.
Taking the advice of a friend, he decided to earn degrees in both accounting and business administration in 1971.
Using the skills he learned and honed at MSUM in his professional journey, first as a sales manager in 1978 at Hebron Brick, he progressed into his current role as CEO and sole owner of the successful company.
Under Paseka's leadership, Hebron Brick emerged as a nimble and specialized player in a market of competitors with massive resources. In addition to introducing robotics to the manufacturing plant, he directed efforts toward providing architectural products for commercial projects and developing new product lines to grow the business.
His commitment to quality and adaptability has secured the future of this 111-year-old company, which in its history has survived bankruptcy, fire, two world wars and the Great Depression. Today, Hebron Brick thrives—with 80 percent of its brick distributed to 40 states and Canada.
Paseka considers himself an extremely fortunate person. As one of the first MSUM Phonathon callers, he has been involved in raising money for scholarships since the '70s. That humility, heart and dedication to help fellow and future students at MSUM has continued to be a prominent mission for Paseka, encouraging other MSUM alums to "pay it forward."
In 2015, he gave a transformational gift of $5 million to fund business school scholarships, resulting in the renaming of the business college to the Paseka School of Business.