DENNIS KELLER, '68 DISTINGUISHED ENTREPRENEURIAL ALUMNUS Most people who find success have had “serious, significant help,” Dennis Keller believes. The chairman and chief executive officer of DeVry Inc. was quick to share credit for his success with family, friends, teachers, colleagues, and role models as he accepted the 1997 Distinguished Entrepreneurial Alumnus Award. Of all of those supporters, “family bears the brunt the most,” he noted. Recalling one of his early start-up ventures, he asked, “Can you imagine a mother allowing her high school kid to have more than 400 parakeets in the basement?” Keller’s career in the bird business didn’t last long, but he was already drawing up a business plan for private, for-profit educational systems while he was completing his degree at the GSB. In 1973, just five years after graduation, he opened the Keller Graduate School of Management with partner Ron Taylor. The pair acquired DeVry Institutes in 1987 and have built their idea into a $308.3 million enterprise with 50,000 students at campuses across the country. Along with his family, Keller, chair of the Council on the Graduate School of Business, credits his experiences at “the incredible University of Chicago” for his success. “Those who do find success have a responsibility to pass along the help they have received and give others the same support on their path,” he added. “Thank you–thank you so very much for this honor.” more

JEAN HEAD SISCO, '46 DISTINGUISHED PUBLIC SERVICE ALUMNA Jean Head Sisco–an experienced retailer and consultant, savvy corporate board director, and sophisticated civic booster–explained her commitment to community service with a down-home tale. “My Texas grandfather used to tell me, ‘Honey, if you want to be part of a community, you have to remember the three G’s. First, give as much as you can. Second, get others to give. And if you’re not willing to do the first two, you better do the third–just git! Git out of that community,’” she recalled. Sisco followed the first two rules and has given a great deal to the arts, literacy, women in business, and other causes in Washington, her home since the 1950s. She has poured 25 years of her time and energy into Reading Is Fundamental and currently serves as its treasurer. She is past president of the Washington Performing Arts Society and the Washington Ballet. She had few female role models to follow when she earned her M.B.A. at age 21 and went into retailing. She has long considered it her responsibility to support and encourage young women who have followed her into business. She is chairman of the Leadership Foundation of the International Women’s Forum and has raised scholarship funds for promising businesswomen. In 1974 she left a long career in retailing and later founded Sisco Associates, her consulting firm. More recently, she launched a second career in corporate governance. She was the first woman director of the Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade, and has served on the boards of more than 20 companies thus far. She has become an advocate for good corporate governance and female representation on boards, serving as chair of the National Association of Corporate Directors and of the Center for Corporate Leadership. She also found time to serve on three presidential advisory committees. Thanking the selection committee and the all 30,000 alumni for her award, Sisco noted, “At age 20 I made three wise decisions. I chose to attend the GSB, I met Joe Sisco at International House and married him, and I elected to enter the field of retail. For all three of these life-changing choices, I credit the University of Chicago, and I am eternally grateful.” more

MELVIN R. GOODES, '60 DISTINGUISHED CORPORATE ALUMNUS AND DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS Some people are casual about their connection to the educational institution that gave them their start. Not Mel Goodes. “There was nothing casual about my attending the University of Chicago,” said Goodes, the chairman and chief executive officer of Warner-Lambert Company. “This school, its people and faculty, the quality of its staff and students, had a profound effect on my future. I arrived very apprehensive and totally overwhelmed. My education here was made possible by fellowships from the Ford Foundation and Sears Roebuck. I left this school with a passion for lifelong earning and an understanding of the role commerce plays in enriching society.” The GSB, Goodes said, endowed him with the foundation for his success. After five years in various positions with Ford Motor Company, he found his niche with Warner-Lambert in 1965 and has been with the company ever since. He became chairman in 1991 when the multinational giant was struggling and has transformed the ailing company into a hot stock. Today he supports several educational efforts with his time and expertise; they include the National Council on Economic Education Executive Committee, Queens University, and the GSB, where he is a member of the advisory council. He urged others to support the GSB in ways that assure that it will continue its heritage of educational excellence. Accepting his award, he assured the audience, “I will never be casual about my connections to the University of Chicago and I am most grateful to you, my fellow alumni.”

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