RADFORD -- A snazzily dressed Nike executive in the Radford University student center Friday was closing out a long discourse on corporate culture and marketing concepts when a student put him on the spot.

"You don't have to answer this, but, how much do you make?" the student asked.

"I make a living, right?" Steven Boyd replied.

One could hardly fault students for wondering that detail after they had heard Boyd give a speech on the many successes of Nike, where he is employed as a marketing officer.

Boyd is a Floyd native who graduated from Radford and returned this week as a featured speaker to tell of his ascent to Nike, the largest sports shoe and clothing company in the world.

He said Nike was co-founded by an accountant selling Japanese-made shoes out of his vehicle at high school and college sporting events in Oregon in 1962. Today, the company is pursuing a goal to sell $23 billion worth of shoes, clothing and equipment in 2011.

That means it must grow during the economic downturn: 2007 sales were a mere $18.6 billion.

Boyd said the company excels at innovation, having improved athletic footwear with such enhancements as soles cushioned with air pockets.

Nike offers a running shoe with a transmitter that communicates the wearer's pace, distance and other data to the wearer via an Apple iPod.

"That got me into running," said Boyd, who also plays golf and tennis.

Nike markets its goods with star-studded advertising campaigns designed to inspire the athletic spirit in everyone, Boyd explained.

"It's a story of a small business that became a multinational" and illustrates "the power of people and a culture, he said.

A 1993 marketing graduate of RU, Boyd worked at two textile industry companies -- Cross Creek Apparel and Gold Toe Brands Inc. -- and earned a master's degree in business administration before landing a post 30 months ago at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., outside Portland.

At 38, he is a marketing and communications director in the equipment business unit focused on socks, according to his business card. He described his job as ensuring that socks, bags, basketballs and similar items are attractively packaged and presented at company-owned or third-party stores such as Dick's Sporting Goods.

He said the Nike campus is like a college with athletic facilities, a variety of restaurants and a collaborative atmosphere in which colleagues spark each other's creativity.

Though he wore a black blazer, black turtleneck and lightweight Nike Jasari running shoes to campus, "we're all dressed like you every day," he told students in Bonnie Auditorium.