Innovision Fall 2018

14 | INNOVISION MAGAZINE LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON KEN ‘88 ‘92 & RYAN STEWARD ‘17 ‘18 The epic cliche, “like father, like son,” has made its way to Kutztown University. Ken Steward can walk around the campus of KU and see his son, Ryan Steward, choosing the same path he once did. Both Stewards graduated fromKutztown with an undergraduate B.S.B.A. degree in accounting, and soon Ryan will join his father as a graduate in KU’s MBA program. Though there are many similarities between the two, their paths to KU were quite different. Ken Steward was the first in his family to continue his education after high school. He found himself attending Kutztown because he attended a football game and liked what he saw and decided to enroll. Besides, Kutztown was only 25 minutes from where he lived. He says, “I was a first-generation student 17 years old, I popped on this campus, and I didn’t know what I was doing.” After Ken graduated from Kutztown in 1988, he got a job at Dunn and Bradstreet. Ken quickly realized that his accounting degree he received from Kutztown had not only given him the foundation needed for his job, but also offered a lot of value to his career. After six months, Ken decided to kick it up a notch by pursuing his MBA. He went through the MBA program with his uncle Richard Bergstein. Ken and Richard decided on KU’s MBA program because of their three C’s: “Close, cost and connections.” For the last 11 years, Ken has been the Associate Vice President of Academic Financial Management in the provost office here at KU. His daily tasks involve financial analysis. He works with the provost Ryan Steward is set to graduate Kutztown University almost 30 years after his father, Ken Steward.