A Closer Look: MBA 1967: Joe Ollivier

Photo Courtesy Joe Ollivier

Joe Ollivier (left) and friends stopped at the summit of Aconcagua long enough to unfurl their flag and pose, then began their perilous return.

THERE ARE TWO THINGS to know about Joe Ollivier. He aims high and he doesn't give up.
       Ollivier's first quarter at the GSB left him feeling woefully inadequate--so much so that he called the registrar to find out if he was still welcome for a second quarter. He was, and he did well enough thereafter to teach business part time at his undergraduate alma mater, Brigham Young University, for nearly three decades.
       As for his business career, that golf ball factory he bought early on "created a lifelong tax loss carryforward," he says. But Ollivier followed by founding 22 companies, including a bank, a construction company, two oil companies, and a full-service securities firm that is now run by his oldest son. Currently, Ollivier is president of First Capital Development, a venture capital and lending company in Provo, Utah.
       And then there's mountain climbing. On Ollivier's honeymoon in Bora Bora, bride and groom fell off a 35-foot cliff, suffering major injuries. But undeterred, Ollivier aimed for greater heights in Utah and Wyoming and, in 1989, in Argentina, where he attempted 22,834-foot Aconcagua, the world's highest mountain outside the Himalayas--only to be turned back by wind and weather at 20,000 feet.
       Ollivier couldn't get Aconcagua out of his mind. Nine years later, in February 1998, he and three friends went back to Argentina. Five people had already died on the mountain since the beginning of the year, and five more would die while Ollivier was there. After spending nine days in base camp at 14,000 feet, Ollivier's party reached the summit in three days--despite winds of 100 miles per hour and nighttime temperatures of 50 below zero. "It was like living inside a cyclone," he says.
       "Reaching the top was so emotional. I was exhausted, exhilarated. I burst into tears." Ollivier posed for a few commemorative photos and then headed down Aconcagua for good. Next stop: Kilimanjaro, where he's taking his family in May.
       When asked why he climbs, Ollivier likes to quote the French climber René Daumal. What he says is a good lesson for life. "There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up," said Daumal. "When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."

JANET ZICH