A Closer Look: MBA 1939: Bea and George Gibson

MANY PEOPLE MEET future professional colleagues at the GSB. Many more make lifelong friends. But Beatrice Haslacher and George Gibson found their spouses of 55-plus years when they attended Stanford Business School in the waning days of the Great Depression.
       George's statistics partner was a fellow named Bob Haslacher. He introduced George to his sister Bea, who like them was a member of the MBA Class of 1939. Bea, a San Francisco native, had worked in retail sales before business school. "Business was in my blood," she says. "I wanted more background in it--but not in merchandising. Although, wouldn't you know, at the time I got out, the only place I could find a job was in merchandising!"
       Bea and George courted during and after business school, marrying in 1941 as World War II bore down on the country. George joined the U.S. Navy and was based with other cost accountants in San Francisco, where they fought "the Battle of Market Street," as Bea puts it, and Bea left the Emporium to join the war effort as a dispatcher for the Gibson family bus lines, which had been drafted for military uses. It wasn't until the war was over that the couple settled for good in George's native Sacramento.
       The Gibsons' life together has been a good one. George sold Gibson Bus Lines and became a public accountant for 10 years before going into construction. He retired as president of Campbell Construction in 1984.
       Once they moved to Sacramento, Bea was never again "gainfully employed"--her words. But if it's possible to be gainfully unemployed, Bea was. The children of Sacramento have certainly gained from her volunteer work. Besides raising her own children, she has been active in helping the at-risk children of Sacramento, most recently with Smart Kids, an organization that matches local college student-tutors with inner-city children. She has involved herself in civic matters, from successfully fighting a neighborhood garbage dump to unsuccessfully promoting the merger of Sacramento city and county governments. George, for his part, actively supports the arts of the area, particularly the Crocker Gallery. And both are still involved with the Business School. Says former Sacramento chapter president Mary Van Maren Foley, MBA '84: "They are a role model for younger alums."

JANET ZICH