Chang K. Park

Chang Park is an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a social activist, and a visionary. He is the president and CEO of Universal Remote Control Inc. (Harrison, New York), a world leader in technology, innovation, and quality. Born and raised in Korea, he came to the US alone as a teenager to pursue an education. He soon developed an interest in mathematics—the only language he could understand in his new homeland. Park enrolled at Michigan Tech and graduated in 1973 with dual degrees in electrical engineering and engineering administration.

In his first job after graduation, he worked for an engineering consulting firm in Philadelphia, designing and reviewing mass transit systems, including the Washington Metro System, the BART System in San Francisco, and the Northeast Corridor between Boston and New York. He went on to earn an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, then joined J. P. Morgan in New York, working in international finance.

Guided by his entrepreneurial spirit, Chang started a business in his sister’s garage that provided jobs for youths in an impoverished area in Korea. He steadily expanded the business, and he has been developing and marketing remote controls and home automation products for more than twenty years. He chairs the Chang K. Park Foundation, an organization that supports human rights, the elimination of poverty and hunger, the implementation of political reform, and economic justice. Chang is a member of the national governing board of Common Cause and the board at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Chang Park was Michigan Tech’s Midyear Commencement speaker in 2011.

Excerpted from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy induction ceremony program August 2012