SOUTH PORTLAND – In 1985, Mike Dubyak mailed his resume blindly to an executive at Wright Express.
The man who received the papers tossed them in the wastebasket.
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That same day, however, Wright Express signed a deal to receive venture capital funding. The deal required the company to hire additional executives.
Dubyak’s papers were fished out of the garbage, and the company hired him in January 1986 as vice president of marketing.
In the years that followed, Dubyak climbed the corporate ladder at South Portland-based Wright Express, holding a variety of positions in the marketing, sales, business development and customer service divisions. He was named president and CEO in 1998.
Dubyak was raised in the steel town of Struthers, Ohio, just outside Youngstown. His father worked at steel mills before World War II and later ran electrical shops and beer distributors. His mother tended the family.
Dubyak graduated in 1973 from Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio with degrees in political science and business. He moved briefly to Long Beach, Calif., where he worked as a landscaper.
In 1974, during the Arab oil embargo, Pennzoil hired Dubyak to interpret government pricing regulations in Cleveland. He later moved to Houston and worked in Pennzoil’s supply and distribution division.
A few years later Dubyak moved to Pittsburgh, taking a job at a start-up called Reserve Petroleum, which sold petroleum products to companies involved in the steel industry.
At about that time, however, the steel industry was shrinking in the Rust Belt. Dubyak decided he wanted to live in a more vibrant region of the country, such as the Northeast.
“I was in my 30s and wanted a more dynamic environment. I wanted to be in northern New England,” he said.
In 1985 Dubyak moved with his family to Rye Beach, N.H., and took the Wright Express job shortly after.
Today, he lives in Cape Elizabeth with his wife, Denise. He has a 27-year-old daughter, Iva, who is studying writing and Chinese meditation in California.
Dubyak enjoys traveling and thrill-seeking. He has sky-dived with his daughter, visited the Galapagos Islands and ridden the Colorado River in a dory.
This month he and his wife spent six days hiking over 15,000-foot peaks in the Andes mountains to the ancient Inca site of Machu Picchu.
Jonathan Hemmerdinger can be reached at 791-6316 or:
jhemmerdinger@mainetoday.com
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