Tag: scholarships

This article was originally published in the 2017 Olin Business Magazine.

Sid Guller, BSBA ’47, worked for a year to save enough money to pay for his freshman year at Washington University. “Tuition was $125 a semester, plus books, plus an activity ticket,” Guller recalled. “I think the activity ticket was $15.” In order to stay in college, Guller worked one and sometimes two jobs during the semester and full time during the summer break. He wanted to study engineering like his older brother Harold, BSEN ’39, but soon realized he was better suited for business.

Today, Guller is chairman of St. Louis-based Essex Industries, the privately held defense and aerospace manufacturing company he founded with his brother in their parents’ basement in 1946. Their first product, an F-214 Radio Noise Filter, was the first of many aircraft controls and components that led to the company’s participation in virtually every major military and commercial aerospace program for the past 70 years.

Sid Guller recently committed $500,000 for the Bobbi Guller Memorial Scholarship he established at Olin Business School in 2011 in memory of his wife, Bobette, who died in 2010. He also pledged $300,000 through the Guller Foundation for the Guller Joint Program Scholarship benefiting students in the 3/2 program, which gives undergraduates the opportunity to earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering and an MBA in five years.

The Guller Foundation—the charitable arm of Essex Industries—has supported the 3/2 program since 1986.

“There are many intelligent and skilled young people who don’t have the means to attend Washington University,” Guller says. “I support scholarships so they can receive an excellent education, then graduate and apply what they learned to benefit society.”

A tireless champion of Washington University, Sid Guller has served on the Olin Business School National Council since 2000 and the Olin Capital Resources Committee since 1999. He has supported multiple annual and endowed scholarships and provided funds to name two spaces at the business school, the Bobbi and Sidney Guller Lounge in the Knight Center and the Guller Classroom in Bauer Hall.

He has received Distinguished Alumni Awards from the university and Olin, which also honored him with the Dean’s Medal for exceptional dedication and service.

Why give back? The reasons are as personal as they are varied. Washington University Alumni & Development interviewed five WashU alumni—including three Olin grads!—to discover why they dedicate finite time, money, and resources to better their alma mater.

Russ Shaw, BSBA ’85

“I think a key reason why I give time to the University is, I had such a positive experience myself. I loved my four years here. The academics were great. The student life was wonderful, and it’s just great, being an alum, to be able to come back and give back to the University.

This is a wonderful institution. It’s a world-leading institution, but it keeps getting better. There is a drive and a vision to keep making it better, stronger, the best academic institution in the world.”

Jeff Rosenkranz, BSBA ’84:

“Education, to Lisa and I, is very important—and not just for our kids, but making sure that everybody has access to education. And that’s a big reason why we support the University, both financially and with our time.”

Lisa Rosenkranz, BSBA ’82:

“I feel like WashU was the launching place for my personal and my professional life. It was the place where I grew up, where I really learned who I was, where I had learned that I could be independent.

My first job in marketing couldn’t have been a better job, and I really credit WashU with giving me that opportunity. I also wouldn’t know Jeff if it hadn’t been for WashU. If I hadn’t gone here, I wouldn’t have the wonderful life I have.”

This Giving Tuesday, we hope you’ll consider a gift to future generations of Olin Business School students. Learn more about ways you can help Olin continue to be a world-class institution for business education.

Howard Wood, BSBA’61, grew up in Bonne Terre, Missouri, a farming community sixty miles from St. Louis. Both of his parents were school teachers and there was no question that he would go to college, but how to pay for it was a major obstacle. “We were as poor as church mice,” Wood says.

“Washington University was just like it is in these days.  It’s a very expensive place to attend given some of the alternatives.  And my first year’s tuition was $750.” That did not include room and board, Wood is quick to add. He will never forget the generosity of one man who made it possible for him to attend WashU.

“We had a gentleman in Bonne Terre by the name of Henry Day who owned a quarry in the county … St. Francois County where I grew up.  And he offered a full scholarship each year to Washington University.  I was on that scholarship as was my brother.  And we were the only two that ever graduated on it.  So it was kind of an unusual situation, but it was a very nice scholarship, and he was a Harvard graduate. But that’s how I got to Washington University; otherwise I would never have been able to attend.”

Wood was considered “an out-of-town student” when the majority of students lived within the metropolitan area and could take the streetcar to school. “There were very few dorm rooms, practically none,” Wood recalls. “The fraternities had most of the rooms for the men.  There was no South 40. They didn’t have sleeping rooms in the sororities.  So it was a little bit different back in 1957.”

Howard Wood had a successful career at Arthur Anderson before partnering with Olin alumnus Jerry Kent to launch Charter Cable. He has been a generous supporter of the Scholars in Business program and talks about the importance of scholarships in another video in this series.

Link to more Olin history on the Centennial website.

Dani Gallo McCausland, BSBA’16, was awarded the Geoffrey Beene National Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded by the YMA Fashion Scholarship Fund. Dani spent time in New York presenting her Geoffrey Beene case to a panel of executive judges and was named one of the four winners last Tuesday.

Of the four winners, Dani is the only business student.

Congratulations Dani!

Read more about Dani and the Geoffrey Beene Scholarships here.

Last week over 500 scholarship students, scholarship benefactors, faculty, and staff filled Knight and Bauer Halls for this year’s Scholars in Business dinner. Students and benefactors mingled before hearing opening remarks from Dean Mahendra Gupta.

A video showcased the impact of scholarship funds for multiple students within Olin before Khalyani Sankar (BSBA ’16) and DeRoyce Simmons (MBA ’15)  spoke on behalf of all scholarship recipients, sharing their personal stories and the impact their scholarships have had on their time at Washington University in St. Louis. (Click on video above.)

Chris McGrath (BSBA ’89) shared the impact scholarship dollars has had on his family and how he’s appreciated being able to give back to a current student. McGrath recently established his annual scholarship, the Jake Cusano Memorial Scholarship.

Dinner was served on the third floor of Knight and Bauer Halls and allowed for further dialogue for the night. Donors fly in from across the country for this event and it allows scholarship recipients the opportunity to get to know and thank their scholarship donors for their generous contributions to their education.