If Will Hsu ’00’s parents had had their way, he would have gone to a private, Ivy League university for his higher education, not a public institution like UW–Madison. As it happens, Hsu tripled-majored in finance, East Asian studies, and Chinese language and literature at the UW — an experience that prepared him well for a path through corporate America and Harvard’s MBA program and landed him back home in Wausau, Wisconsin, running the family business, Hsu’s Ginseng Enterprises, Inc.
“I ended up getting both,” Hsu says, regarding his degrees from public and private institutions. “My parents are happy, and that’s what matters.” Luckily, Hsu is also happy — and proud of his time at Wisconsin. In addition to running Hsu’s Ginseng, founded by his first-generation, Taiwanese immigrant parents in 1974, Hsu lends his time, support, and expertise to advocate and create opportunities for fellow Badgers as a member of the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association Board of Directors.
- Favorite ’90s band: Pearl Jam
- Favorite ’90s movies or TV shows: Pulp Fiction, Seinfeld, ER
- Favorite campus-area hangout: Mickie’s Dairy Bar
- Late ’90s trend you’d like to bring back: No cell phones.
- Favorite Madison concert: Pat McCurdy
- Best dorm horror story: I lived in the dorms for a very long time because I was a house fellow and peer learning partner in Lakeshore. That was before they had air conditioning. So, you have 60-some guys and/or gals sharing tight confines with limited air conditioning and airflow. It’s rough by today’s standards.
What accomplishments or projects are you most proud of working on in the last 25 years?
The thing that I’m proudest of is coming back home to run the family business. There are numerous things I was proud of during my corporate career at General Mills, but in terms of a lasting type of change and legacy, I would say coming back home to the family business, coming back to agriculture and farming, and just living a different lifestyle than my peers.
I’m forever appreciative to General Mills because they sponsored me to go to Harvard for my MBA. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my early career as a financial analyst at General Mills, both education-wise as well as experience-wise. I’m now getting to apply that in a smaller setting, one that’s more impactful at the community and the personal level.
What are you working on now?
I’m really just trying to change the things that need to change in order for our organization to be more resilient and more sustainable in the future. There’s no guarantee that my daughters or my nephew — the next generation in our family — will necessarily want to or be equipped to run the family business in the future. My goal since I’ve been back has been to make the changes that need to be made internally so that this company can be run with or without a family member at the helm.
[This includes] professionalizing the organization, systematizing and codifying things, and also, giving the knowledge and initiative to the staff to do things, to implement teams, to make the business more profitable for their own financial benefit. It’s not to benefit the family. It’s really turning your family business into a business family. You have to turn it into a business family where the business comes first, and you treat people in the business like your family.
Are there any courses, professors, or opportunities from your time at the UW that have had a lasting influence?
I did a study abroad in China, through the [Wisconsin] School of Business and [Letters and Science], at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Then I did an internship afterwards. Just being able to see what was going on in China in 1997 really made me rethink what I was planning on doing career-wise, but also, just understanding the opportunities that were going to present themselves over the next 25–30 years.
I had some really amazing professors in what’s now called Asian Languages and Literature. Nicole Huang, who is no longer at the UW, really pushed me to look at [Asian] literature because it’s underappreciated, I think, because we focus so much on the Western classics. To spend entire semesters just reading classical Chinese, in native Mandarin or in translation, you learn so much about society’s perceptions and values. We have so much to learn from history, but we spend so little time in the U.S. educating and learning about those other cultures and those values.
Our industry and our product have huge exposure in China, so [there’s value] in at least being familiar contextually with who the people in that society and that culture admire. Just like the U.S. market, we have our folk heroes in Chinese literature, in Chinese drama, in Chinese culture, and being able to understand, appreciate, and discuss those things has been very helpful.
What’s your best memory from your time on campus?
As I was getting closer to graduation, I used to supervise the campus tour guides. Just being able to champion the university with incoming students or prospective students — showing them around campus, getting to talk to parents, getting to talk to students. I also worked SOAR [Student Orientation, Advising, and Registration] at the time. Being able to talk to incoming freshmen and just tell them what makes the UW so amazing and awesome — I think those were my fondest memories working.
Why has staying connected and offering your support been so important to you?
When you come from Wisconsin and more humble beginnings, especially when you don’t live in some of the major metropolitan areas, you kind of want to build a sense of community. That’s what we’re all looking for. All of our communities have moved online. I think why I’ve been so passionate about the UW, especially the on-campus experience, has been because it’s the first time for a lot of college students [that they can] build a community with some common understanding and knowledge and experiences. I’ve been working to try and build those connections again because it seems like it should be easier now that we’re all online and digitally connected. I think what people are finding is it’s actually harder. It’s harder to make personal connections.
Having these deep connections from 25–30 years ago, even if I haven’t seen some of my friends or classmates from back then, having those shared experiences is unsurpassed. I want future generations of Badgers and future generations of Wisconsinites to have those same opportunities.
