David Kelley, founder and CEO of IDEO Product Development, grew up in Ohio, where he survived on a diet of Velveeta cheese and white bread, He attended Carnegie Mellon and studied electrical engineering, but spent more time working on carnival floats. After graduation, he worked for Boeing on the 747. He learned early that in a large company, he didn't get to choose the people he worked with. He came to the Graduate Product Design Program at Stanford, where he discovered his passion–design. His first company was called the Intergalactic Destruction Company. One of the things he learned in graduate school was that you can use design in any situation in life.