Honoring a Legend: Collaboration at Work

Douglas Burgum and Robert Kagle, both MBA ’80, were inspired by their 25th reunion to honor Chuck Holloway and create The Charles A. Holloway Professorship.

July 15, 2007

Sometimes a single donor is moved to make a generous investment in an endowed professorship. At other times, it takes a village. The Charles A. Holloway Professorship came about after Douglas Burgum and Robert Kagle, both MBA ’80, were inspired by their 25th reunion to honor Chuck Holloway, the Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers Professor of Management, Emeritus. Burgum and Kagle provided the idea and the seed capital that, in turn, prompted an outpouring of response from more than 25 alumni and friends.

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Chuck Holloway (left) and GSB lecturer John Morgridge, MBA ’57

Chuck Holloway (left) and GSB lecturer John Morgridge, MBA ’57, one of the lead donors to the professorship fund.

With significant lead gifts from former Cisco Systems CEO and Chairman John Morgridge, MBA ’57, and his wife Tashia, and former Ford Motor Co. CEO Donald E. Petersen, MBA ’49, the school raised more than $4 million to honor a professor who has had a profound impact on the lives of numerous students and colleagues.

Given Holloway’s long tradition of bringing scholars and business practitioners together in the classroom, it is especially fitting that Morgridge - who co-teaches the popular MBA elective course Evaluating Entrepreneurial Opportunities with Holloway - is honoring a man who has strongly shaped his relationship with the school. “Chuck has been instrumental in exposing students to real-word business challenges through his teaching and collaboration with practitioners like me,” says Morgridge.

Petersen also was inspired to give generously to the fund. He says, “My exposure to Chuck Holloway these past decades has made me a fan of his – his excellence of thinking, and excellence in teaching.”

Holloway, a faculty director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Stanford GSB, helped many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs get their start. His influence on the field of operations, information, and technology will be carried forward by the appointment of Stefanos Zenios as the inaugural chairholder of the Charles A. Holloway Professorship.

Faculty support is a key area of need for the school, which must have the resources to recruit, retain, and recognize its faculty members, particularly as luminaries like Holloway retire. One of the greatest tributes to a professor is having a fund in his or her name that will support the next generation of faculty members and perpetuate the legacy of superior teaching and path-breaking research that makes Stanford GSB the premier school of management.

“I have had the tremendous good fortune to teach great students and associate with world-class colleagues at Stanford,” says Holloway. “To have a set of them come together around a chair in my name is an honor beyond my imagination and makes me even more appreciative of the opportunities I have enjoyed at Stanford.”

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