I teach "Managing Growing Enterprises", a course offered to students who aspire to manage their own business. The class uses a case discussion format, and the “star” of each case is present to offer feedback and insights.

My objective is to get students to think about business situations they will face. The issues are not strategic; they are, instead, the common day-to-day problems that occupy much of a manager’s time. We role-play with some frequency, using this technique to put students in the CEO's shoes.

I enjoy contact with the students, and I encourage them to meet with me. This enables me to get to know students individually and allows them the opportunity to discuss issues of interest to them.

Dick Allen has over 39 years experience in the health care industry, both as an operating executive and as an angel investor/board member. He started his career at Baxter Healthcare, holding domestic and international positions in both finance and operations during his 10 year stint there. After leaving Baxter, Dick co-founded Caremark, a venture capital-backed pioneer of IV infusion therapy delivered in the home. He headed the finance, operations, and administration functions of the company at various times in its period of rapid growth and was instrumental in helping to lead a successful IPO just three years after the company’s founding. Since Caremark’s sale to Baxter in 1987, Dick has been President of DIMA Ventures, a privately-held firm that provides seed capital and board support for start-up companies in the medical device and health care IT markets. In this capacity, he has been a founder, board member, or early-stage private investor in more than a dozen companies. He co-founded Pyxis Corporation, a manufacturer and marketer of hospital-based automated prescription drug storage and dispensing devices, and he served on the executive committee of the Board of Directors until the sale of the company for almost $1 billion to Cardinal Health in 1996.

Dick held the position of Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1989 to 1993. He returned to Stanford in 2004 where he is presently teaching a course entitled “Managing Growing Enterprises”. Dick is a past Chairman of the Board of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, and he continues to serve as a board member for the hospital. He is also a past Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Orange County Business Council and a past recipient of the Director of the Year award from the Orange County Forum for Corporate Directors. He is on the Board of Directors of the Orange County Community Foundation, the M.I.N.D. Institute, and several privately held health care companies.

Dick received his BS degree (cum laude) from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa, and has been married to his wife Mary for 41 years. They are both active in the Orange County chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. They live in Newport Beach, California, and have two grown children and two grandchildren.