A MISSION TO HEAL

Charlene Dale Riikonen remembers how her hands shook on the steering wheel as she drove up Route 95 to the UMBC campus for the first time. After a career in science administration, followed by years as a homemaker, Riikonen had decided to return to college to complete her bachelor's degree. She had no grand career plan in mind, and couldn't possibly foresee how her skills as an administrator would lead her on a circuitous path to business ownership.

As UMBC's first co-op student, Riikonen created an internal events management organization from scratch, which was so successful in leasing campus facilities that eventually it more than covered her salary there. At that point, she recalls, "I didn't think of myself as entrepreneurial. I thought it made sense to bring money into the University." Nevertheless, within five years, her talents as a business organizer led to a position as associate director of university relations and development at College Park.

And then Charlene Dale Riikonen's world changed completely. A month-long trip with a friend to Bangladesh in the mid-1980s turned into an intensive two-year stint, during which time she landed a job with the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research -- a medical research facility that teaches people how to treat severe diarrhea (a common problem in Bangladesh and other developing nations) through oral rehydration therapy. At the time, scientists had only recently discovered that rice -- a cheap staple among the local population -- was a very effective carrier when mixed with life-saving electrolytes (sugar, water, potassium, and salt). For Riikonen, the proverbial light bulb flashed: Why not bring this simple product formula to the U.S., and market it internationally? This, she thought, was an area where "I could make a contribution." But was she up to the task?

"It seems a little odd," she reflects, "but I think the work I did at UMBC in events management, and setting up this whole system for epidemic control [in Bangladesh], are really very similar." Riikonen had always been a superb organizer; now she was an organizer with a vision.

It took several years to bring together foundation funds, scientists from Hopkins, Harvard, and elsewhere, and other resources. But Riikonen stuck with it, and in 1993, CERA Products was founded. CERA, based in Jessup, MD, is an upstart in an $85-million market dominated by giants Abbott Laboratories and Bristol Meyer Squibb. But the tiny company (just four employees) is holding its own, having doubled sales of its rice-based Ceralyte formula this year over last. The product is priced competitively - it costs roughly five times less than comparable products - and is gaining customers in the U.S. and much of Central and South America.

Although CERA is just now edging into the black, Riikonen is hoping that a new line of sports drinks (also combining rice and electrolytes) will add significant revenues. Once the company begins making money, Riikonen intends to give a percentage of its profits to targeted health research, and already the company has donated Ceralyte to AIDS patients and others in need.

As a latent entrepreneur, Riikonen admits that it was better to leap first, look later. "It's certainly been a lot more difficult than I had any idea it would be. Where fools rush in, angels fear to tread. I didn't realize all the hurdles we'd go through with the FDA, and the bureaucratic requirements."

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