Togami Center opens at JBU

SILOAM SPRINGS — Kai and Wendy Togami were honored April 13 at John Brown University by having the Togami Center for Innovation named after them.

The Togami Center for Innovation was named for Kai Togami, a longtime JBU professor and his wife Wendy Soderquist-Togami, the founding director of the Soderquist Leadership Center. The innovation center is located on the second floor of the Soderquist College of Business.

According to Dr. Eva Fast, assistant professor of entrepreneurship and marketing, the innovation center will be developed in phases.

The first phase is what was attendees experienced, which included big butcher block style tables, movable white boards, and various couches and flexible seating to foster discussion around different business model iterations, Fast said.

“What you see here in this corner of the building is collaboration between teammates, collaboration between teammates and advisors or potential customers or partners through that,” Fast said.

The second and third phases plan to include a possible maker- space and a possible showcase room for students to demonstrate their products, Fast said.

Various members of staff and students recorded video messages for the Togamis for their years of service. Kai Togami is the director of the JBU chapter of ENACTUS and professor of international business at the Soderquist College of Business who is retiring this year.

Wendy Soderquist-Togami was the founding director and senior leader at Soderquist Leadership Center (now Milestone Leadership) for 17 years, according to the university website. Soderquist-Togami is currently the president of the Stenkirke Family Foundation, the website states.

“The benefit of having a space where everyone from the whole campus working together and interacting with each other is where the real benefit comes,” Kai Togami said, “and the thought process being it’s not for ourselves that whether it’s ENACTUS or the leaders that I’ve seen grow up … that are giving back for the benefit of others.

“That’s the power of it and when we stop making it by ourselves, and to Wendy’s point you can find other frames of reference other ways of thinking about solutions, questions, how to make something else better — that’s what we want this to be about.”

(NWA Democrat-Gazette/Marc Hayot) Kai (left) and Wendy Togami were honored April 13 by having the Togami Center for Innovation named after them. The Togami Center is located on the second floor of the Soderquist College of Business on the campus of John Brown University.