Paul Orfalea

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Orfalea (Arabic: بول أورفاليا‎), nicknamed "Kinko" because of his curly red hair, born in Los Angeles, California to parents of Lebanese descent, founded the copy-chain Kinko's. He is currently a philanthropist and a visiting professor in the Global and International Studies Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara and the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

He was commemorated with a plaque by the community of Isla Vista, which is next to the UCSB campus, where the original Kinko's copy shop was founded.

Paul Orfalea founded Kinko's in 1970 near the University of California at Santa Barbara with a simple idea: provide college students with products and services they need at a competitive price. The space that Orfalea rented for his copy business was so small that the copy machine had to be lugged out onto the sidewalk. From its modest beginnings, Kinko's is now the world's leading business services chain. Today, there are over 1,500 Kinko's worldwide.

Orfalea also hired salespeople to sell notebooks and other stationery at the dorms of UCSB.

In 2005, Orfalea coauthored the book Copy This! Lessons from a hyperactive dyslexic who turned a bright idea into one of America’s best companies. Indeed he seems to take pride in having dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

“I get bored easily, and that is a great motivator,” he said. “I think everybody should have dyslexia and A.D.D.” [1]

Orfalea is a 1969 initiate of the Gamma Eta Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha at the University of Southern California.

He founded the Orfalea Foundation which among other things sponsors NOW (TV series) with David Brancaccio.

He also made a large donation to the Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business, the business school within California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo Campus.

[edit] External links

• Paul Orfalea's official website

This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since March 2007.