Poole Pack Profiles: Get to Know Mike Stanko

As a boy, Mike Stanko planned to pursue a music career. He eventually changed his mind, and thousands of Poole College students have benefited.

He was drawn to marketing in college and decided to pursue teaching. This eventually led him to the classrooms at Poole, where he joined the marketing and innovation faculty in 2008.   

It’s not that Stanko has forgotten music. An electric guitar hangs in his office as an invitation to keep strumming. And he does — with his daughter and son at home, at resorts and bars on vacation, at open-jam nights. But as an undergraduate at Wilfrid Laurier University in his native Ontario, Canada, his professors’ love of teaching was contagious. “Seeing the joy in the classroom and the learning generated by everyone in the room had a great appeal,” Stanko says. 

“It occurred to me then that teaching would be an enjoyable thing to do. Some of my professors were having a lot of fun teaching for a living. I thought that would be a cool thing that maybe I could do,” he says, “something where I could make a difference to people.”

He has. Stanko is a recipient of NC State’s Outstanding Teacher Award and a couple of Poole College teaching accolades.   

But his impact on students extends beyond the classroom. The best part of teaching for him? 

“It’s seeing the wonderful things our students get up to months and years later,” he says, “the different paths they find in the business world and in their own personal life. Every now and then I can see that what we learned together in class has helped them in some way on their journey.” 

A Musician, First

Stanko’s journey began on a musical track. 

As a child, he played the violin and piano and performed competitively. He stopped when he was 12. “I worked at it to the point where it wasn’t fun. I got so fed up with being force-fed practice and technique that I quit,” he says.

Stanko later auditioned for, and was accepted into, Wilfrid Laurier’s orchestra. He left the group when he realized it would double his course load. “I saw that I preferred music as a hobby, at my own pace,” he says.

“Some of my professors were having a lot of fun teaching for a living. I thought that would be a cool thing that maybe I could do.”

Stanko was deeply engaged in his college business courses. After he graduated, he worked in a couple of marketing jobs in Ontario before returning to school at the University of Toronto.

Soon afterward, Stanko became a doctoral marketing student at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business. That’s when he returned to his idea about a teaching career. 

His music experience proved something important. “Just because I’m passionate about something doesn’t mean I have to make my living at it,” says Stanko, who taught guitar for a while. 

Teaching, however, is a place where he can be passionate and make a living.

Stanko’s academic research focus of new-product development spawned from his interest in consumer products as a boy, inspired by his father’s precise handling of a fancy camera he owned. 

Later, as a doctoral student doing research, “I thought a lot about the customer’s journey with a product and how product development intersects with the product experience. I suppose that was a signal that I was on the right path to be a marketing professor,” he says.

Intramural Excellence

To take a break from his duties as marketing professor, Stanko steps onto the basketball court at NC State. He plays intramurals in the spring on the Nooners team of faculty, staff and graduate students. He also sometimes participates in lunchtime pickup games.      

The court is a familiar place for him. He was on basketball teams from grade school to graduate school.  

“Now I play with a lot of younger guys and try my best to keep up,” says Stanko, who has a NERF basketball net in his office. “The rest of my team is much better than I am.”

His hometown of Sarnia, Ontario, on Lake Huron just across the border from Michigan, has produced dozens of National Hockey League players. Stanko played hockey for a while as a kid — but “not well,” he says. Stanko also notes that former NC State golf star Matt Hill — who won the NCAA individual title in 2009 and turned professional a year later — was originally from Sarnia.

Athletics are important in Stanko’s off-campus life, too. He’s a coach for his son’s basketball and baseball teams. His NC State basketball experience informs his coaching.

His own team has won the Wolfpack’s intramural basketball championship multiple times. “We haven’t lost a game in a couple of years,” he says.

But whether or not he has a winning streak, the journey toward excellence — even more than the result — is Stanko’s main reward. “I like to be a striver. I’m big on the grind,” he says. “Happiness is found in the grind to get 1 percent better.”