Years ago, as Michael Markesbery prepared to climb an 8,200-foot mountain in the Swiss Alps, he had a realization. His puffy outerwear made him look and feel like the Michelin Man, the legendary tire-wrapped mascot of the Michelin tire company.

“I wondered how the astronauts could keep warm without the bulk that I was wearing,” says Markesbery, a 2011 graduate of St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati. “So, I went home and studied products that were not nearly as bulky, and that’s how I landed on aerogels.”

He found that aerogels, a solid insulating material made of more than 90% air, had been around for more than 75 years. For decades it had been used to insulate NASA spacecraft in the minus 450-degree conditions of space. Based on that realization, while still in college, he and classmate/friend Rithvik Venna co-founded a company that would eventually be called Oros and later renamed Solarcore in honor of the company’s principal product.

Despite aerogels’ effectiveness, they had a reputation for being delicate and difficult to work with in factories. A budding innovator, Markesbery imagined combining aerogels with closed cell foam, the material used to insulate soft coolers and shoes, among other things. The result? A new material that Markesbery and Venna patented and named Solarcore.

None of it would have been possible without an early Kickstarter campaign that met its $100,000 goal in a matter of days and went on to raise close to $320,000 from more than 900 investors. A subsequent fundraising effort brought in $22 million and today, Solarcore insulates cold-weather shoes and gloves for many top outerwear companies, including Merrell, L.L. Bean, Cabela’s and Skadi.

Most recently, Solarcore provided the insulation in the Helly Hansen Bifrost Winter Tall BOA S7S HT boot, which won an industry design award and launched this fall. The Solarcore company also counts the United States Department of Defense among its customers. Markesbery estimates that the market for Solarcore insulation could be as high as $459 billion.

“Michael Markesbery may soon be the most successful entrepreneur from St. X,” says Timothy “Coach Mac” McDonald, St. X’s chair of entrepreneurship & innovation.

That is saying a lot, considering that St. X also counts entrepreneurs Chris Wanstrath (co-founder and former CEO of GitHub, which he sold to Microsoft) and Vivek Ramaswamy (founder of Roivant Sciences and United States presidential candidate) among its alumni.

In 2017, McDonald created a class called American Capitalism & Entrepreneurship. Five years later, St. X had three different classes on entrepreneurship, and they are as popular as ever today. American Capitalism & Entrepreneurship is foundational and covers everything about starting a business with an entrepreneurial perspective. The Entrepreneurship in Action class (created in 2020) is based on learning-by-doing, and the Innovation & Venture Creations class (created in 2022) helps students build the skills they need to become actual, real-world entrepreneurs.

Today, a total of about 225 students take at least one of the classes. Many take all three. Another 250 students attend events like field trips and “X at Flex” guest-speaker presentations, or they get involved in the Bomber Brew student-run coffee shop, or the Servant Leadership Initiative mentoring program.

“A lot of times, students will just reach out to me and say, ‘Coach Mac, can we meet? I have an idea for a business,’ or ‘Can we talk about how to come up with ideas?’” McDonald says.

Although Markesbery did not participate in the entrepreneurial program while at St. X (it had not yet been created), he has returned as a guest speaker in several of McDonald’s classes. He’s done a great job every time, McDonald says.

Markesbery’s grandmother, Judy Saba, is the late Jesuit Fr. Tom Diehl’s sister. Their family has deep roots in the Cincinnati area. Father Diehl, a 1937 St. X graduate, was pastor of St. Xavier Church and founder of the Jesuit Renewal Center, now known as the Jesuit Spiritual Center at Milford, in Milford, Ohio. He passed in November of 2006.

Solarcore is now based in Portland, Ore., but no matter where Markesbery’s innovation takes him, Cincinnati, where it all began, will always be home.

“This was a foundational time in my life,” says Markesbery about his time at St. X. “I had quite a few really amazing teachers, and what made them amazing was that they decided to believe in me.”