Honoring an icon

Monday, October 22, 2012

By Terry Rush

Bob Hamm saw the young men and women taking his classes as more than just names and faces trying to get a passing grade during his 38-year teaching career. The longtime business school faculty member says many former students became his friends.

Many of those Oklahoma State University students — perhaps we should say friends — are now successful as oil and gas executives, attorneys, business owners, college professors, members of Congress and in many other fields too numerous to list. Hamm had a part in pointing them in the right directions during their college days.

Hamm was held in such high regard when he retired in 2002 that a group of former students helped fund a $250,000 endowed scholarship in his name. And two former OSU students are helping spearhead a new effort to further honor the 79-year-old teaching icon.

Vaughn Vennerberg and Frank Merrick want to recognize Hamm as OSU’s Spears School of Business plans to move into a new 200,000-square-foot building in the coming years.

“There was no doubt whatsoever in our minds that Dr. Hamm needed to be honored, and I knew it would be a very successful fundraising effort because of the broad base of support for him from students for the many years he’s been involved at OSU,” says Vennerberg.

The initial effort was to raise $250,000 to name the Department of Marketing office after the longtime marketing professor, who taught on the Stillwater campus from 1966 to 1990 and again from 1996 to 2002.

But his former pupils believe the best way to honor Hamm would be by naming a classroom in his honor. After all, the classroom is where he had the greatest impact on thousands of students.

“It’s not about money; it’s about where he made his mark, and that was in the classroom,” says Steve Mackey, chief administrative officer and executive vice president of Tulsa-based energy company Helmerich and Payne. “That’s what we need to do because not only do I think it would please him more, but the most fitting honor we could give him is in the classroom, because that’s where he excelled.”

It will take a gift of $500,000 to name a classroom after Hamm, and efforts to reach that goal are picking up steam.

“I think personally it’s nice from my standpoint for him to know that I appreciate what he’s done for me, for my family and for my career,” says Mark Burson, who often sought Hamm’s advice during his 16 years as a Stillwater business owner. “I don’t know of a better way to acknowledge that. Selfishly, I want him to know how much he’s meant to me.”

Vennerberg graduated from OSU with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He didn’t have Hamm as a professor but got to know Hamm while Vennerberg served as president of the universitywide Blue Key leadership organization, which the professor advised for more than 20 years.

“Like many other students, I have stayed in touch with him over the years. It’s certainly been a rewarding friendship for the past nearly 40 years,” says Vennerberg, who is known for his success in the oil industry and educational philanthropy and was one of the featured speakers at OSU’s Commencement ceremony in May.

“I think when you really understand and realize the impact he’s had on the hundreds of thousands of students that he’s taught, it was a very easy decision to give money in his name to honor him. He is such an inspiring individual … to be able to give something to honor him for what he’s done for so many students over so many years was an easy decision for me.

“After all he’s given, it’s time to give back to him,” says Vennerberg.

Hamm is overwhelmed with the outpouring of support in his honor.

“One of my greatest fears is that people would ask one of my students, ‘Who did you have for marketing?’ And they would say, ‘I don’t remember, but I know we had a green book.’ I still get phone calls from students who will quote back to me things that I said in class many years ago, and they still remember it.

“It’s nice to know they haven’t forgotten you,” says Hamm, who was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame in 2007.

Mackey believes very few individuals find their calling in life as Hamm did, and then have the impact both in and outside the classroom. Hamm has traveled to 138 countries, helping plan curricula, design courses, teach professors and build business libraries for universities in China, the Czech Republic, Jordan and Argentina. In addition to academics, Hamm was a consultant to organizations such as NASA, Liberty National Bank, Remington International, Gulf Oil, PepsiCo and Southwest Bank Corp.

“We always in life don’t have the privilege of working squarely within our gifts, and I think his gift was to be an educator,” Mackey says. “I think you could see his love for teaching and his passion for teaching, and I think that came through in the classroom and was part of the reason he did make it interesting and relevant and fun because he was clearly within his gift.”

How to Help

To contribute to the classroom in Bob Hamm’s name, or to make a gift to the building fund, visit osugiving.com/givetospears. All gifts will count toward the Branding Success campaign.

By designating your gift in Hamm’s honor or providing a gift for the Spears School of Business new building, you will be a partner in shaping the future of business education at Oklahoma State. If you prefer to make your gift in person or have questions regarding the project, contact Diane Crane or David Spafford at the OSU Foundation at (405) 385-5106.