ITHACA — The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University has received a $10 million gift from alumnus John Smith, and his wife Dyan, to fund the family business initiative named after them. John Smith, who graduated from Cornell in 1974 with an MBA, is chairman of CRST International of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, […]
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ITHACA — The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University has received a $10 million gift from alumnus John Smith, and his wife Dyan, to fund the family business initiative named after them.
John Smith, who graduated from Cornell in 1974 with an MBA, is chairman of CRST International of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a family-run business that is among the 10 largest U.S. freight-trucking firms, according to a Cornell news release.
The wish for family businesses of all kinds to be owned and operated by subsequent generations motivated the Smiths to make this $10 million donation, Cornell said.
“With the Smith’s generous gift, we can now put in place a systematic program to help prepare students for starting, scaling, and managing a family business,” Soumitra Dutta, dean of the Johnson School, said in the release. “The Smith Family Business Initiative will have a profound and lasting impact on family business and graduate business education at Johnson and Cornell.”
The Smith Family Business Initiative will be housed in Johnson’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute, and will fund three key additions to the institute:
· The John and Dyan Smith Professorship of Management and Family Business, who will serve as the initiative’s lead faculty member
· The Smith Family Clinical Professorship of Management, who will serve as director of the initiative
· The Smith Family Research, Program, and Faculty Support Fund, which will support a number of activities, including course offerings, student and alumni programming, marketing and outreach, presentations by visiting executive speakers, and faculty recruitment
“With a focus on family businesses at Johnson, good research will be conducted, educational seminars will address the unique needs of family businesses, and prospective students will be drawn to Johnson because of the family business expertise on campus,” John Smith said in the release.
Wesley Sine, the faculty director of Johnson’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute, is currently developing the Smith Family Business Initiative’s first two programs. One is a course that will focus on the benefits and challenges that are specific to family businesses. Two is the Smith Family Distinguished Family Business Lecture Series, which will bring executives from the world’s most successful family businesses to the Cornell campus.
The Smith’s son Ian, currently earning his MBA at the Johnson School, is among many students from family businesses, who have joined the school over the past several decades, according to Cornell. Ian, scheduled to graduate with his MBA in 2015, will likely graduate before the Smith Family Business Initiative is fully under way, but his parents say they already see how their son’s Cornell graduate education will help advance CRST International in the future. Ian Smith plans to join the board of the directors of the company immediately upon graduation, and immerse himself in learning all parts of the family trucking business, according to the Smiths.
“Ian has a very strong background in finance and strategy,” Dyan Smith said in the news release. “He likes to figure out the best way for the company and family to grow and change in the future.”
Cornell’s Johnson School offers five MBA programs, a Ph.D. program, and non-degree executive education. Johnson also offers programs across Latin America, Mexico, and China.
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