On Monday evening, Patrick Kushe shared his life experience with
a group of students in Anheuser-Busch Auditorium during a
presentation on the “Eight Critical Thinking Errors that Landed Me
in the Federal Pen.” Earlier that afternoon in McDonnell Douglas
Hall, Kushe presented “Speaking of Ethics: How Seemingly
Unimportant Decisions Can Cost Dollars and Careers.”

Kushe shared with the audience how his success as an
entrepreneur, and the choices he made, led him down a “slipping
slope” where he eventually ended up doing time in a federal
penitentiary. He went from being a successful financial planner to
an international fugitive by partaking in unethical behavior, which
included unprofessional ethics, a number of critical thinking
errors and greed.

In 1993, his unprofessional activities in the state of Oklahoma
came under investigation. Kushe decided to flee his home in San
Diego to Costa Rica where he lived as a fugitive for the next four
years before turning himself in. In 2001, Kushe was released after
serving four years in foreign and federal prisons.

To fulfill his community service obligation, he began to give
lectures on business ethics and share his insights, personal
failures in business and other lessons learned on the causes and
effects of unethical behavior at colleges, universities, businesses
and organizations throughout the United States.

“Seemingly unimportant decisions are those snap decisions we
often make that get us in so much trouble,” Kushe said. “We make
them based on short-term thinking and are often immersed in a
personal instant-gratification mindset. We want it and we want it
now, we will worry about the long-term repercussions later.”

Kushe left the audience with this last piece of advice: “College
is the best time to begin thinking about your ethical future. Be
thinking now about what types of things you are willing to do, and
not do, when you get into your professional career. Keep ethics at
a conscious level, don’t wait until later when something or someone
comes to you with an ethical dilemma and then try to decide where
you stand. It will often be too late. That’s what happened to
me.”

Remember, “your character is not only who you are in public, but
also who you are when you are by yourself,” Kushe added.

“He brought up a lot of really interesting points about how
small decisions you make in your job can affect things on a large
scale,” said Megan Elliott, a senior biomedical engineering
student.

One would never think that when faced with a question about an
ethical decision that the choice one makes could land one in jail,
Elliott said.

The Association of Parks College Students, as a kick off to
National Engineers Week at Saint Louis University, sponsored
Kushe’s presentations. National Engineers Week aims to promote
engineering at all levels. Activities for the rest of the week
include local high school students touring the college’s
laboratories, flight simulators and participating in robot races on
Thursday, Feb. 26.

On Saturday, Feb. 28, Parks has invited members of the Junior
Academy of Sciences, which is mainly middle school students, to
build their own robot before competing in the race.