Former Orr Fellow extends opportunities to new Fellows

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When Bo Dietrick was a Purdue student in 2011, he spent the summer asking successful people the same question: How did you get where you are today? Again and again, he heard the same answer: Orr Fellowship.

Dietrick applied, was accepted, and began his career as an Orr Fellow at ExactTarget, where he worked in sales enablement before moving into a new content marketing team.

More than a decade later, he is president of Robert Dietrick Company (RDC), a third-generation, family-owned industrial solutions business based in Fishers that his grandfather founded.

Dietrick is now using Orr Fellowship to give other young professionals the same kind of early-career opportunity that shaped him. At RDC, Fellows have helped build out areas not traditionally associated with an industrial company, including marketing, technology, innovation, and business analysis.

He is one of five Orr Fellowship alumni at the company. RDC employs three current Fellows, with several former Fellows staying with the company after their two-year Fellowships ended. In his words, Orr Fellows bring new viewpoints, energy and curiosity that help the company see what it otherwise might miss.

As Orr Fellowship celebrates its newest graduating class, RDC shows what can happen long after the program ends. A Fellow becomes a company leader. That leader returns to Orr to find the next generation of talent. Those Fellows are trusted to build real things inside an Indiana company and help shape its future.