John “Ozzie” Nelson, Jr. was the keynote speaker at the CAS’ second annual Convening the College event Monday night in the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium.

Nelson is on the College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board and a chairman/co-CEO of design, architecture, branding and consulting services organization NELSON.

Nelson was introduced with a prayer from the Rev. Larry Snyder, St. Thomas women’s a cappella group Cadenza and CAS dean Yohuru Williams. Williams called Nelson “something else” while introducing him, noting that Williams’ mother would call him the same when he did something good as a child.

“It didn’t happen often because generally the extraordinary was couched in terms of the naughty,” Williams said, “but when it was extraordinary, it was a good thing, she would say ‘you’re something else.’”

Nelson’s keynote speech, “Shaping Our Future: The Art and Science of Experiential Design,” spoke on how experiences and experiential design have changed our lives and how it will change our future lives.

“I get the opportunity tonight to spend the evening with our future,” Nelson said in his speech, “and… we are in incredibly good hands.”

He spent part of his speech talking about St. Thomas’ mission statement and how it prepares students for the real world.

“We’re all about the common good,” Nelson said. “(St. Thomas) not only trains people in disciplines and in education, but prepares people to be global citizens of the world and to be stewards of our future.”

Nelson graduated from St. Thomas in 1987 with a degree in business administration. During his time at St. Thomas, he was involved with the All College Council, now the Undergraduate Student Government, and was the student body president his junior year.

Nelson joined his father’s firm after graduation, then an interior design firm of 15 people according to the NELSON corporate website. Under Nelson’s direction, the firm expanded from one office to over 25 locations, serving clients throughout the world transforming the organization to a design, architecture, branding and consulting services conglomerate.

Nelson was recently named one of the “Most Admired CEOs” in the Twin Cities by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

Nelson took over as CEO in 2003. Since then, the organization executed over 40 mergers and acquisitions, bringing NELSON to a No. 37 rank in the industry to a top-ten organization with more than 500% growth.

“Over the last five years, we have gone from about 300 employees to 1,100 employees,” Nelson said. He also said that annual revenue grew from around $60 million to around $200 million in that time.

Nelson spoke fondly of his St. Thomas experience.

“It’s fair to say that many of my fondest experiences have been at (St. Thomas),” Nelson said.

Justin Amaker can be reached at justin.amaker@stthomas.edu.
Jack Stanek contributed to this report.