Startup athlete

Athletes are students first in the University Athletic Association, a league made up of nine of the nation’s leading research universities, including Case Western Reserve. But many of those student athletes are also job-creating entrepreneurs.

The UAA intends to trumpet that message with a series of profiles of its players who went on to launch and run companies. The showcase of UAA Student- Athlete-Entrepreneurs began this spring with Sandra Oh Lin ’97.

Oh Lin starred on the soccer fields for CWRU while earning her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. After experiences with Procter & Gamble, PayPal, and eBay, the mother of three founded KiwiCo, which popularized subscription activity kits for kids.

According to the story, she was inspired by her success designing enrichment projects for her own children. Friends urged her to make it a business. In 2011, she launched Kiwi Crate, which became KiwiCo.

“With kits inspiring young minds to build their own archery sets or craft a “trashketball” game, KiwiCo combines an engineering mindset with the athletic drive toward a goal,” the profile reads. “To date, the company has shipped more than 50 million crates since its inception.”