TCNJ

19 WINTER 2024 University of Pennsylvania, Montclair State, Glassboro State. Soon there were nine schools, then 17, then 35 schools. "We were getting 35, 40, 45 percent response rates," Matejka says. "At the time, direct mail was happy if they were getting three, four percent response rates." Matejka left his residence hall job and campus apartment in 1985 to work full time in the business. By then they had signed up about 90 schools with the same business model: partner with the schools, share the revenue. By 1990, they were large enough that they designed and built a warehouse with attached office space tailored to the workflow of the business: marketing, storing, assembling, dispatching. Over the next 30 years the company was sold several times, changed its name to On Campus Marketing, and broadened its offerings: welcome packages with first-aid kits, multitools, laundry bags, and other dorm essentials; extra-long linens for the extra-long twin beds in college dorms; comforters and pillows. When they signed up the University of Alaska they had reached all 50 states. By 2005, when Dumhart left, they were in 900 schools. Matejka stayed until 2019, just before COVID closed campuses and eventually pushed the company into foreclosure. The building itself was rented out as storage space. "And then we got the call from Butter, who said, 'I think I was just in your building,'" Matejka says. After he retired in 2018 as CEO of NJM Insurance Group, Bernie Flynn went to TCNJ to study education, envisioning a second career as a teacher. "But once I spent a full semester in a second-grade classroom, I realized that teaching second grade was too hard," he said. "I wanted to figure out what I was capable of doing, " We need to be here, and we need to be here for the long haul." — Bernie Flynn

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