Gimme Five: On the right course

No doubt that serious business development takes place on the golf course, so who better to head a business development center than the man behind the Northville Classic? On Aug. 31, Gene Bernstein stepped down as vice chairman of Northville Industries to step up, one day later, as dean of the Scodnek

The long-time head of a third generation family business, Bernstein is now putting to work everything from the Ph.D. in English Lit he earned at Amherst to his ties with local business leaders to carve a niche for himself in private education.

Married to his college sweetheart, Bernstein has lived in Roslyn Estates for the past 18 years, keeps an apartment in the city and, now that he's finished The New New Thing, is currently reading Beowulf. From an office still filled with boxes, he'll tell you being a dean means he's having too many business lunches, but you do get a pretty good parking spot.

Q. How'd you end up in education?

A. I've been friends for a long time with the provost here, Herman Berliner. Over the years, we've had these long talks about the

fate of private higher education. When this opportunity presented itself, it seemed to combine all of my interests. Three things have defined my adult life: involvement in business, community service and higher education. Here I'm really a bridge to the business community, and I can use my business connections to help raise the profile of the center. My predecessor did a phenomenal job of getting things together, now we have to let people know it's here. This is the only place in the world where all of McGraw Hill's data is in one place.

Q. What's the similarity between running a business and education?

I taught freshman composition forever. Logic would dictate that if that's the one course everyone has to take, then it is the single most important class. It forces you to organize your thinking. Having a business goal is kinda like a thesis. You have to stick to the point.

Q. What's the best lesson you've learned lit business?

A. I'm an optimist by nature, but I've learned not to fall in love and be blinded by a product because I developed it. You may think you developed something really great, but if the customers don't really care for it or need it, then you're nowhere. I learned that in the early '90s when I was in the golf' club manufacturing business.

Q. How important is golf to business on Long Island?

It's hugely important in a variety of ways. Where else can you spend at least five hours together with a prospective business associate. It gives you the opportunity to judge their character, see how they conduct themselves in competition, how they treat the locker room attendant and valet. It's not so much a place to transact a deal as much as it is to get to know someone, and if you can trust their judgment.

Q. How often do you golf?

A. More than my wife wants me to, but less than I'd like.