Charles M. Harper Center Dedicated in Style

A plaque erected in front of Charles “Mike” Harper’s home in Omaha best signifies the work of his business school alma mater, Harper said during the dedication of the Charles M. Harper Center November 2. “It says, ‘Even eagles have to learn how to fly,’” he said. “Isn’t that the best description of the GSB? I’m just one slice of the GSB, and that is teaching somebody how to run a business. Another slice is research, which creates a whole new body of knowledge. And another slice is creating people to better teach someday.”

Harper, who as former CEO led ConAgra Foods from $600 million to $21 billion in annual revenue, said he learned “probably the most important thing ever” while serving in the Army shortly after World War II. “That is, officers live a hell of a lot better than enlisted men,” he said. “You work, you get educated, and by George, a lot of eagles grow into officers from enlisted men.”

Dedication of the award-winning building bearing Harper’s name kicked off the 2007 Alumni Celebration. The University Motet Choir opened and closed the ceremony. Among the speakers offering praise and gratitude to Harper were Dennis Keller, ’68, and Andrew Alper, AB, ’80, MBA ’81, co-chairs of the capital campaign.

Harper’s generous naming gift is confirmation that the “prime meridian of management education” runs through Chicago, said Ted Snyder, dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Economics. “The building’s dramatic, spectacular design makes it in the estimation of many, including me, the best business school facility in the world,” Snyder said.

“It’s the gathering place for the entire GSB community,” he added. “It’s the physical representation of our wider connection to the greater University of Chicago. It’s a symbol of the progress we are making on our goal of being the best business school in the world and being recognized as such.”

Family, friends, colleagues, and GSB alumni paid tribute to Harper in a 10-minute video presentation. In the video Harper explains how he got the idea for the successful Healthy Choice brand after suffering a heart attack. “My wife said she was going to change the way she cooked,” he said. “She used ground turkey in her chili and it was delicious.” But ConAgra officials got “bad vibes” from the Food and Drug Administration about using the name Healthy Choice, Harper said.

“I said, ‘I’m going to go down to the FDA and see for myself,’” he said. “The lawyers told me not to do it. That’s just not how business was done in Washington DC. When I told [FDA Chief David Kessler] about the idea, he said, ‘Mike, you’ve done a great service for the people of this country.’ I asked him about the name and he said, ‘It’s a deal.’ You always love going back to the lawyers to tell them they were wrong.”

Harper was a “virtuoso” at multiple business skills, said Eric Gleacher, ’67, chairman of Gleacher Partners, who worked with Harper when ConAgra acquired more than 200 companies and who provided the naming gift for the Gleacher Center. “Mike has an engineering degree from Purdue University and an MBA from the GSB,” he said. “He understood the accounting better than the accountants. He understood the tax tradeoffs better than the tax lawyers. And he’s a marketing genius.”

Of all the companies Harper and Gleacher acquired, Harper never resold one, Gleacher said. “When something went wrong in any of those companies - and lots did go wrong - he dug in and got a lot of dirt under his fingernails,” he said. “He made them work. To me, he’s a combination of a smart guy learning engineering, getting trained at the GSB, and then applying that intellect and working hard to fix what’s broken.”

-Phil Rockrohr