Below is a link to his beautiful obituary but I wanted to say
a little more here today.
Like the biggest Oak tree in your neighborhood, you could not
miss John. He was a big, tall Swede with messed up hair and a booming voice.
And like a tall Oak tree he was strong against the biggest
winds and he sheltered the rest of us from the elements. He was tough and
honest and despite sometimes holding views that everyone might not share, he was
universally loved and respected. You always knew with John when he was
pontificating about this or that – that his words came from a huge heart and
from an even bigger brain. You might disagree with him, but you always thought
he was fair.
I met John when I started at the Kelley School of Business in
1976. John had already been a young finance prof for a few years before I got
there. We both drew the short straw and were required to drive to the business
school’s Indianapolis campus to teach
one course a year. That was a wonderful way to get to know each other. We’d
drive up to Indianapolis from Bloomington together, teach our respective classes,
would find a restaurant/bar for dinner after class, and then drive back to
Bloomington. Often there were other colleagues driving with us – Buck Klemkosky
and Vic Cabot come to mind.
We drove back from Indianapolis one night in the middle of one of the
biggest snowstorms to hit central Indiana. As a lad from Miami I was glad to
have a Michigander with me who could drive on snow.
I was honored to get to know John in those early days and to
remain family friends and colleagues for all these years. John and Jean were
always fun and interesting. John always had an opinion about everything. You
had to be ready to discuss or he would crush you with his research and logic.
I miss seeing his face a lot. It is one of those faces that
immediately brings a smile to your face. But much of the reason for wanting to
write today has more to do with the special talents that John brought to
academia. We hear a lot of criticism about academics. One is they do esoteric
research in very fancy academic journals and know little about the real world.
Another is that they get paid handsomely for that research and care little for
students. John was an academic with a PhD from Purdue. But John was the
antithesis of what people complain about.
Professors are graded on three scores – academic
research, teaching, and service. Tenure, pay, and continued employment are
evaluated each year on those three criteria. Most of us are lucky to do okay on one of the
three. But John maxed out on all three. I won’t go into details on all that
because you can read about it on the attached excellent obituary.
John might have been the best and most beloved teacher in all
of Indiana University. He was that good. He wasn’t the guy to buy off the
students. He was tough as nails. But John intertwined incredible knowledge with
a gift of caring communication few of us ever achieved. His research was both
academic and applied. He wrote articles in a variety of outlets for anyone
interested in corporate finance and investments. If that wasn’t enough, John
made major contributions to the life of the school. He ran the Executive
Education Program for years. He knew how to manage things in ways that most
academics will never know. He turned programs into successes for the school because
he knew how to create, staff, and manage programs.
Finally let me say that all that work at IU never deterred
him from being a friend, a husband, a father and later, a grandfather. There
were no tradeoffs for John. He worked, he played, he loved, he fathered. Not
sure when he slept but this guy did it all. He is remembered by so many of us
in the way that we all wish we too could be remembered.
John Boquist was the tallest Oak tree.
