School of Business > UPDATE > Fall 2001 > Article

Lighting Fires
After 38 Years, Noted Educator Howard Thompson Retires

At its best, education isn't about "filling buckets" of knowledge for students, it's about "lighting fires" in their imaginations. Finance Professor Howard Thompson, who retired from the School of Business in May after 38 years, was clearly a fire starter.

Few individuals have had the impact on the School of Business as did Thompson, who served the School of Business not only through his teaching, but by conducting important research in his field and filling key administrative roles, including chairing two different departments in the School of Business.

Professor James Morris, chair of the business school's Department of Operations and Information Management, said, "Howard set the standard for what it means to be a professor in the School of Business. His influence can be felt in everything from our governance structure to the composition of our faculty due to his recruiting efforts, and most importantly, in the education of his students."

Several graduates wrote messages to Thompson on the occasion of his retirement. Barry Shore, PhD '68, who had Thompson as his doctoral advisor, wrote: "There are maybe three or four people I can identify as having had a significant influence over my life. Howard is certainly one of them, and to this day his influence is still felt... I can remember my first job when I was surrounded by colleagues who had just graduated from Harvard, MIT and Princeton. I was intimidated! Could I compete? But Howard had taken care of that. He had trained me well, and, indeed, I had no trouble holding my own in teaching and research."

Thompson joined the School of Business as an instructor in 1963, and was promoted to assistant professor the following year, after earning his PhD from the University of Wisconsin. Previously, he had earned BS and MS degrees in mathematics from Wisconsin in 1956 and 1958 and worked as a mathematician and operations research analyst at A.O. Smith Corporation. In 1969, he was promoted to professor and became the business school's first named professor in 1975.

Thompson's teaching career included 20 different courses, including statistics, operations management, operations research, applied economics and finance. From 1997–99, he collaborated with colleagues in nuclear engineering, geology and astronomy to teach a course on resources in space.

Somehow, he also found time to chair more than 30 dissertation committees and serve on 30 others. His research was published in nine books and more than 60 scholarly journals, and he served on several editorial boards of scholarly journals.

There is scarcely an important committee in the School of Business that Thompson did not serve on sometime in his career. For many years he served on the Subcommittee of the Executive Committee, including six years as its chair. He chaired the school's Department of Quantitative Analysis (now Operations and Information Management), and for the past four years chaired the Department of Finance, Investment and Banking. He also chaired several important committees at the university level, and served on a UW System committee charting the future of graduate business education.

Thompson's impact did not stop at the doors to the university. He was a consultant to the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Energy, the American Public Power Association and the State of Wisconsin departments of Justice, Natural Resources and the Public Service Commission, among others.

It was his impact on finance students, however, for which Thompson was most noted. According to Professor David Brown, who now chairs the Finance Department, "Howard's patience and interest in working with students are boundless. During his final years as department chair, he also acted as visiting director of the Applied Security Analysis Program, initiated our new applied program in corporate finance and was advisor to large numbers of graduate students. Obviously, the best interest of Wisconsin students was on top of Howard's list of priorities."

Many prominent members of the U.S. financial community are former students of Howard Thompson and credit his interest and support for playing an important role in their careers. Stephen L. Hawk, BBA '63, MBA '64, PhD '69, for whom the Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis is named, is both a former student and faculty colleague of Thompson. Hawk, chairman and CEO of Northern Capital Management, said one of Thompson's greatest strengths is that, "Howard genuinely likes people and wants to help them develop all of the potential they inherently possess." Hawk added, "For some students, it was hard because Howard expected you to really try. The stories are legion on campus about papers that were turned in to Professor Thompson only to be returned with almost more writing on them than on the original manuscript! The more you tried, the harder Howard would work himself in order to enable you to accomplish the best you could achieve."

The Howard E. Thompson Ph.D. Scholarship Fund is being established to honor his career contributions. Awards from this permanent endowment fund will support outstanding Ph.D. students in the School of Business. Contributions can be made through the UW Foundation, P.O. Box 8860, Madison, WI 53708–8860. (Checks should be made payable to the UW Foundation.) For information on gift options, please contact Jim Kubek at the UW Foundation, 608/265–7942, jim.kubek@uwfoundation.wisc.edu.

For information on the purpose of the fund, please contact Professor David Brown, 608/265–5281, dbrown@bus.wisc.edu, or Professor James Morris, 608/262–1284, jmorris@bus.wisc.edu.