What Makes a Family Business Program Donor Tick?

JK: How did you get involved in family business education?

MM: When I finished my undergraduate degree in 1979 at a liberal arts college in Missouri, my late father “highly” encouraged me to come into the business. It was during my first year in the business that I quickly realized how unprepared I was. I knew that Saint Louis University had an excellent business school and applied to its graduate MBA program. Fortunately for me, I was accepted into the fall class of 1980. What happened over the next two years prepared me in many ways. I chose a finance major but was able to take one class in entrepreneurship (long before today’s established programs and majors). Along the way, I met a great teacher, Dr. Bob Brockhaus. It wasn’t until after I had graduated from Saint Louis University in 1982, that I continued my education with him under the Family Firm Forum. Over the years, his examples and engaging role playing (both funny and sober), helped me with private (family) business. The Family Firm Forum was one of the earliest family business support organizations in the country. When Dr. Brockhaus retired, the program struggled and was later closed.

JK: How did you decide to focus on family business education as a way to help?

MM: So, I chose another established family business program, FBC at Loyola University in Chicago. Over nearly a decade with Andrew Keyt (now Dr. and Professor), my knowledge was further expanded. It was an excellent experience. In the back of my mind, I wanted St. Louis to experience what I had benefited from in Chicago and earlier with Dr. Brockhaus. So, after reading many of John Ward’s and Craig Aronoff’s books on family business, I became thoroughly convinced Saint Louis University needed to create a family business program. After convincing a number of the school’s leaders, the Institute for Private Business (IPB) was born. Recently, I was able to donate enough to create the Medart Family Business Professorship in the Chaifetz School of Business at Saint Louis University. The current director of IPB, Khalia Collier (who is a business owner as well, of the Saint Louis Surge) has been leading the recent programing. Currently, the Chaifetz School is leading a search for the right person to fill this newly created chair. I look forward to seeing this happen and the many family companies that will benefit in the Saint Louis region in the years to come.

For family business academics, Mike’s story is a great reminder of what’s important. The work done with students, their families, and the larger community lays the foundation for relationships and knowledge where higher education serves its highest purpose. Mike is an example of what Babson’s family business guru Bill Gartner calls a “thoughtful entrepreneur,” someone who reads and experiences broadly, and works to bring the best of the rest of the world to his or her own small corner of it. In that quest, faculty are key knowledge creators and dissemination partners. But it is also the case that our entrepreneurial supporters, students, and their families can become sponsors of initiatives that extend and expand what programs and schools can do.