Medical doctor. Student. Family man. Comedian. Now entrepreneur. These are the many lives of Dr. Ken Lankin.

Ken is an EMBA student and a physician in Groton. He is also on the medical staff at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London and the William F. Backus Hospital in Norwich.

A few years ago, Ken completed a Physician Management Program at Yale University and realized he needed further training to advance his management skills and credentials.

The Director of that program was Dr. Stephen Rimar, an alumnus of the UNH EMBA program. “Since Dr. Rimar had gone to UNH,” said Lankin “and my department head at Groton, Jeanne Weinrich R.N., was also a UNH grad and someone I deeply respected, it was only logical to choose UNH.”

Early in the program, Ken discovered medical research demonstrating the health benefits of almonds.

 With the help of classmates and professors, he started his own company, Dr. Lankin’s Specialty Foods, LLC, and a flagship product “Awesome Almonds,” flavored roasted almonds without any added oils or preservatives.

The class served as a focus group for many aspects in creating and advancing the company. They participated in choosing the name, company logo, and “taste-testing” to decide which flavors should be marketed.

Ken says, “having a real venue to apply lessons learned in class has made me very attentive. There’s something to be garnered from every module.”

A group in Ken’s class even chose “Awesome Almonds” as the topic for a marketing class assignment.“ I was very honored that fellow classmates were interested in using our little company as subject material and impressed that our marketing professor gave us the latitude to do this.”

“It’s also very exciting to have classmates from diverse backgrounds representing many industries. In medicine we constantly talk about using ‘business principles.’

Now I have the chance to learn what those really are from my classmates who are in business,” Ken said. That’s another reason Ken thought the business-oriented EMBA at UNH was a more enriching program versus a health-care related MBA.

“The faculty has been very helpful and generous in assisting with the construction and growth of the company. Many have freely given counsel and advice both in and out of class. It speaks not only of individual expertise,” says Ken “but also genuine interest in our learning experience in the highest academic tradition.”

“Forming a company is the work of many hands and many of those hands (and minds) are from UNH. In that respect, I consider our company a “product” of the EMBA program. What started out as just an idea, is now a fully formed enterprise.”

Awesome Almonds are now sold in over 20 stores and on-line.* For more information visit: www.AwesomeAlmonds.com