Haas alumna Priya Haji, MBA 03, the co-founder of Free at Last, World of Good, and SaveUp, passed away unexpectedly on Monday, July 14. She was 44.

Born in Detroit, Haji earned a bachelor's degree in religious studies and pre-med at Stanford. After earning her MBA at Berkeley-Haas, she pursued her vision of improving economic opportunity and equality by co-founding three companies.

Free at Last is a national model program for substance abuse treatment and HIV/AIDS intervention in the African American and Latino communities. Under Haji's leadership, the company served 3,000 people per year in East Palo Alto and raised more than $20M in special investments.

World of Good, a retail marketplace and wholesaler of sustainable and fair trade products, improved the lives of thousands of women artisans in 55 countries. It was acquired by eBay in 2010.

SaveUp, where Haji was serving as CEO at the time of her death, is the nation's first rewards game for saving money and reducing debt.

Haji fully embodied the Haas School's Defining Principles, especially Beyond Yourself as she was a consistent contributor to the Haas community. Haji shared her wisdom and insight at various events, most recently by delivering a keynote address at the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) in April 2014. Haji won the GSVC competition in 2005 with her startup World of Good. She also inspired students and served as a mentor for the Young Entrepreneurs at Haas (YEAH) program.

"Like many other Berkeley MBAs in the past decade, I was so inspired by Priya's vision and leadership," says Ellen Martin, MBA 07, who met Haji when she served as her Berkeley Board Fellow for World of Good. "She really pushed us all to approach entrepreneurship—not just social entrepreneurship—in an entirely different way. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude for that."

Haji's honors include being named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; a Social Innovation Leadership Award by the World CSR Congress, a non-profit organization whose annual conference celebrates corporate social responsibility; and inclusion in GOOD magazine's GOOD 100, a list of people driving change in their communities in creative and inspiring ways.

"Priya was such a vibrant force in life—undaunted by challenges, willing to give voice and energy to her ideals and vision," says Haas Lecturer John Danner, who taught Haji in his "Workshop for Startups" class where she co-developed World of Good. "What a profound loss first to her family but to all of us as well who were touched by her example."

Haji is survived by two young children: a two-and-a-half-year-old son, Zen, and an 11-month-old daughter, Omi; her parents, Karim and Asha Haji; and a sister, Amina.

A celebration of her life will be held at Haas in the coming weeks. Details will be published as they become available. Friends are encouraged to share memories on a Facebook memorial page: https://www.facebook.com/priyahajimemorial.

The Priya Haji Memorial Fund has been established to honor her inspiring life and will support an MBA student focused on entrepreneurship and social innovation. Donate at http://givetocal.berkeley.edu/fund/?f=FM8347000.

Graduating Full-Time and Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA students raised some $43,000 as part of the 2014 graduating gift campaigns.

Michael Larcher and Ryan Schultheis, both MBA 14, led the full-time MBA campaign and focused their messaging on keeping Haas "Haasome." They used a cohort competition, social activities, and multiple videos to encourage classmates to donate so that other students can have the same life-changing experience at Haas that they had. In this 26th year of the campaign, the full-time MBA graduating class achieved 90 percent participation and raised more than $31,000.

In the Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA Program, 24 percent of the graduating class raised almost $12,000 for their gift campaign, which was led by Katie McMahon and Jathurshun Sivaloganathan, both MBA 14. The campaign featured a lively cohort competition and focused on the importance of supporting Haas.

The totals raised by Full-Time and Evening & Weekend MBA students include a 1:1 matching gift from UC Berkeley.

Read an earlier story on the undergraduate Feed the Bear Campaign.

Stephanie Fujii, MBA '04, has been named the first assistant dean of the Full-time MBA Program and Admissions, a newly created position at Haas.

Fujii was appointed by Haas Dean Rich Lyons, effective Aug. 1, 2014.

An alumna and nine-year veteran at Haas, Fujii served most recently as executive director of Full-time MBA Admissions. In her new role, she will oversee both the full-time MBA admissions and the full-time MBA program office.

Fujii has held a number of roles at Haas over the past decade. As executive director of admissions for the Full-time MBA program, she led her team in integrating the school's Defining Principles into the admissions process. She also helped streamline the admissions process, moving to an online evaluation system, and consolidating application rounds from four to three.

“Under Stephanie's leadership, Haas has maintained one of the highest selectivity rates among top MBA programs while continuing to bring in a richly diverse class,” said Jay Stowsky, senior assistant dean for instruction.

Fujii and her team have strengthened the diversity of the applicant pool, significantly increasing applications from international candidates, women, underrepresented U.S. minorities, and military candidates in particular.

Prior to her promotion to executive director of admissions for the Full-time MBA Program, Fujii served as senior associate director and associate director of admissions.

Before returning to Haas to continue her career, she served as the executive director of Kokoro Assisted Living, a 54-unit assisted living community in San Francisco.
She has remained on the board of Kokoro, and has chaired its Nominating Committee since 2013.

As part of the new Full-time MBA Program and Admissions department structure, Erin Kellerhals will become the executive director of Full-time MBA admissions and Dan Sullivan will be the director of the Full-time MBA Program Office.

Contact Stephanie Fujii at sfujii@haas.berkeley.edu. (510) 642-1405.

Libby Leffler, BS 06, a strategic partner manager at Facebook, was recognized this year by the online publication Business Insider as one of 30 most important women under 30 in technology.

After joining Facebook in 2008, Leffler served as chief of staff to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg for three years. Today, she leads Facebook’s partnerships with public figures, nonprofits, and media organizations. Prior to Facebook, Leffler worked at Google as a strategist in the online sales and operations group.

Leffler was named to the same Business Insider list in 2013, the year she also received the UC Berkeley Foundation’s Young Bear award, presented to an individual who demonstrates outstanding achievement in fundraising or community outreach.

Read a profile of Leffler in CalBusiness magazine.

It may have taken Hugh D. Williams more than 70 years to earn a UC Berkeley degree. But at age 101, he finally did it.

Williams received the diploma Sept. 22, surrounded by his family at the senior complex where he lives in Cupertino, Ca.

“I’m very appreciative of receiving a diploma at this stage of my life,” Williams said. “I’m honored the Haas School of Business helped make this happen.”


A Riverside, Ca., native, Williams tinkered with machinery and electronics in high school. He was attending UC Berkeley when World War II started. Due to a physical issue, he couldn’t serve in the military so he took a job in a machine shop to help the war effort. When the war ended, he married a fellow UC Berkeley student, the late Ardell Rademacher. They soon had a child to support, so it wasn’t practical to complete his degree. He also realized he enjoyed working with his hands, so he continued to work as a machinist.

Although a UC Berkeley advisor told him that if he petitioned to graduate, the university would probably grant it, life’s circumstances prevented him from pursuing the degree. Williams and his wife built a home overlooking the San Francisco Bay and raised their two children, Douglas Williams, who became an electrical engineer, and Barbara Larsen, a psychology major and special education teacher who graduated from UC Berkeley in 1974. 



Some months ago, reminiscing about things he might have done differently, Williams mentioned to his daughter that he regretted not pursuing that degree. So Larsen sent a letter to Barbara Felkins, assistant director of academic affairs for the undergraduate program, who agreed to help. (Felkins and Larsen knew each other as Berkeley High School students in the late 1960's, participating in marching band together.)

Felkins found the microfiche of Williams’s transcript and added it to the current campus database. Using the requirements published for the class of 1941–1942, she determined that Williams had completed his degree requirements and notified the family.

History was made for the centenarian. 



Williams credits his UC Berkeley business courses with helping him as a shop steward. 

“Business courses helped me avert strikes and facilitate better communication between employees and upper management,” he said. 



Many other family members followed in his footsteps in attending UC Berkeley, including his oldest grandchild, Kate Williams Coppola, who graduated in 2002.

Williams is the patriarch of all family gatherings, and has many intellectual pursuits. And now, joining other family members, he has a UC Berkeley degree to hang on the wall, too.

Above, Williams surrounded (from left) by his son-in-law, David Larsen, BS 72 (Elect. Engineering and Comp. Science); daughter, Barbara Larsen, BA 74 (Psychology); and daughter-in-law, Sue Williams, BA 66 (Rhetoric).

By Elaine Larsen, BA 84 (Mass Communications)

It may have taken Hugh D. Williams more than 70 years to earn a UC Berkeley degree. But at age 101, he finally did it.

Williams received the diploma Sept. 22, surrounded by his family at the senior complex where he lives in Cupertino, Ca.

“I’m very appreciative of receiving a diploma at this stage of my life,” Williams said. “I’m honored the Haas School of Business helped make this happen.”


A Riverside, Ca., native, Williams tinkered with machinery and electronics in high school. He was attending UC Berkeley when World War II started. Due to a physical issue, he couldn’t serve in the military so he took a job in a machine shop to help the war effort. When the war ended, he married a fellow UC Berkeley student, the late Ardell Rademacher. They soon had a child to support, so it wasn’t practical to complete his degree. He also realized he enjoyed working with his hands, so he continued to work as a machinist.

Although a UC Berkeley advisor told him that if he petitioned to graduate, the university would probably grant it, life’s circumstances prevented him from pursuing the degree. Williams and his wife built a home overlooking the San Francisco Bay and raised their two children, Douglas Williams, who became an electrical engineer, and Barbara Larsen, a psychology major and special education teacher who graduated from UC Berkeley in 1974. 



Some months ago, reminiscing about things he might have done differently, Williams mentioned to his daughter that he regretted not pursuing that degree. So Larsen sent a letter to Barbara Felkins, assistant director of academic affairs for the undergraduate program, who agreed to help. (Felkins and Larsen knew each other as Berkeley High School students in the late 1960's, participating in marching band together.)

Felkins found the microfiche of Williams’s transcript and added it to the current campus database. Using the requirements published for the class of 1941–1942, she determined that Williams had completed his degree requirements and notified the family.

History was made for the centenarian. 



Williams credits his UC Berkeley business courses with helping him as a shop steward. 

“Business courses helped me avert strikes and facilitate better communication between employees and upper management,” he said. 



Many other family members followed in his footsteps in attending UC Berkeley, including his oldest grandchild, Kate Williams Coppola, who graduated in 2002.

Williams is the patriarch of all family gatherings, and has many intellectual pursuits. And now, joining other family members, he has a UC Berkeley degree to hang on the wall, too.

Above, Williams surrounded (from left) by his son-in-law, David Larsen, BS 72 (Elect. Engineering and Comp. Science); daughter, Barbara Larsen, BA 74 (Psychology); and daughter-in-law, Sue Williams, BA 66 (Rhetoric).

By Elaine Larsen, BA 84 (Mass Communications)

Alan Lock, MBA 11, the first visually impaired person to trek from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole and to row across the Atlantic Ocean, is a featured “Supersurvivor” in a new book that tracks tales of human resilience from around the world.

Lock’s 2011 polar trek is among a growing list of his inspiring yet grueling adventures. He’s completed 10 marathons, including the 151 mile Marathon Des Sables in the Sahara Desert. In 2008, he set a Guinness World Record and raised over $80,000 for charity when he became the first visually impaired person to row across the Atlantic Ocean.

“Supersurvivors: The Surprising Link Between Suffering & Success,” (HarperWave 2014), by Santa Clara University Associate Psychology Professor David B. Feldman and journalist Lee Daniel Kravetz, examines inspiring tales, such as Lock’s, of growth through survival and trauma. 

After losing most of his sight in 2004 to macular degeneration, Lock was forced to walk away from his dream career as a submarine officer in the British Royal Navy. Instead of giving up, he moved forward, planning the near-600 mile Antarctic trip during his time in the Berkeley MBA program.

“It was an ambition I had since before I lost my eyesight,” he says. “But after I went through my sight loss, I kept hearing stories about people who had done things that didn’t seem possible. It was inspiring.”

At Haas, Lock met Andrew Jensen, MBA 11, a fellow veteran and athlete, and recruited two more to the team, as he began preparations to take on one of the harshest environments on the planet. 

Part of the two-year planning included traversing the ice pack near the Arctic Circle in Iqalui, Canada, training that was backed by a $3,000 donation from Haas.

“Dean Lyons supported us at a time when we didn’t have any other funding,” Lock says. “Without that training and support, we couldn’t have gone on.”

Lock then decided to launch a project to support the venture, Polar Vision, using his MBA training as he marketed the idea and pursued additional funding. Polar Vision since has raised funds and awareness for the charities Guide Dogs for the Blind and Sightsavers, which educates and advocates for the sight-impaired.

When Lock set out with his team, including Jensen, Richard Smith, and veteran guide Hannah McKeand, in November 2011, he faced many challenges, including skiing for nine hours a day in howling winds and white-outs while pulling a 130-pound sled harnessed to his waist. He also endured temperatures that dipped as low as -31 degrees and struggled in thick gloves to put up a tent relying only on his sense of touch. When he reached the South Pole on January, 3, 2012, he became the first visually impaired person to make the expedition.

Now 34, Lock, the head of logistics at British Telecom, isn’t slowing down. A second attempt at swimming the English Channel is in the works; his first try ended due to weather conditions.

“It’s much easier to get off the floor if life pushes you down when you have something to aspire to,” he says.

Check out a Polar Vision documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTQWqpn2QHM

Students, administrators, and city dignitaries, including Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, gathered at the Lower Sproul construction site Oct. 14 to sign the final steel beam for the frame of Eshleman Hall, the Student Union Building.

As a crane lifted the beam, two Berkeley-Haas alumni in attendance, Tom Glazier, BS 04, and Rick Liu, BS 05, were especially proud, as they work for the Bay Area company that is supplying the steel for the project.

“When I applied to Haas I wrote in my essay how I wanted to make a mark on the Bay Area skyline through the company that was started by my dad in 1979,” said Glazier, vice president and co-owner of Hayward-based Glazier Steel. “Seeing that happen at Berkeley is particularly rewarding.”

As a child, Glazier often accompanied his father on job sites, helping to direct cranes and install steel. 

During his freshman year at Fremont Christian High School he met Rick Liu on the varsity volleyball team. It was the start of a long friendship that continued as undergraduate students at Haas.

“Haas not only provided a great education, but the community of people, both students and faculty, was amazing,” Glazier said. “It’s a thriving environment of ambition and excitement.”

Liu especially appreciated how undergraduates mixed with MBA students . “Hearing about graduate students’ pursuits and goals got me motivated and excited about my own plans,” he said.

After graduating, the two went separate ways for work, but remained friends. Glazier joined his family’s steel business, starting in accounting and then moving into project management and operations.  Liu joined the accounting department at Ernst & Young and then worked in corporate finance at the Gap.

One night in 2011, Glazier and Liu were having dinner. Glazier asked him if he knew anyone with accounting and finance experience who might want to join Glazier Steel.

“At first I was thinking about who I could recommend,” Liu said, with a laugh.  “Then it just clicked.  I was a very good match for the job.”

Today, Liu is the company’s financial controller, working alongside Glazier, who leads general management and operations.

Over the last few years, the company has grown by an average of 22 percent per year and doubled its number of yearly projects, which include the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the $223 million Lower Sproul Project.

The Lower Sproul Project started five years ago and is scheduled to be complete in the fall of 2015. It is designed to create a more vibrant gathering place for social and academic interaction and essential student services.

The project includes a new seismically-improved Eshleman Hall; a renovated Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, César Chávez Student Center and Anthony Hall; as well as new late-night cafes, study areas, and meeting spaces.

Stuart Bernstein, BS 86, a Goldman Sachs managing director and partner who has shaken up investment banking with his passion for clean energy and the environment, will be honored as Business Leader of the Year at the 13th Annual Haas Gala on November 14.

The black-tie-optional event, to be held at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, will kick off with a reception at 6:00 p.m., followed by dinner and an awards presentation. At 9:30 p.m., there will be an after-party with dancing and dessert.

Bernstein will be honored for his service, leadership, and long-standing commitment to his alma mater. With the honor, he joins previous recipients Janet Yellen, Haas professor emeritus and now chair of the Federal Reserve; Paul Otellini, MBA 74, the former CEO of Intel; and Shantanu Narayen, MBA 93, CEO of Adobe Systems.In addition to honoring Bernstein, Haas will present its Leading Through Innovation Award to the late Ralph Bahna, MBA 65.

Bahna was a former TWA and Cunard executive who founded the Club Quarters hotel chain and served as chairman of Priceline.com.  In addition, the annual Raymond E. Miles Service Award will be presented to George A. Willman, MBA 93, for his profound initiative and involvement to enhance the Haas Alumni Network. Willman is a partner at Reed Smith LLP, and founder, co-president, and chairman of the board of the Berkeley Angel Network. 

Throughout his Wall Street career, Bernstein has maintained strong ties to UC Berkeley and the Haas School, initiating Goldman Sachs’ program to actively recruit on campus. Today, the firm employs more than 200 Berkeley-Haas graduates. 

Bernstein joined Goldman Sachs after graduating in 1986 and rejoined the firm in 1993 after working in private equity investing.

In 2008, Bernstein, who received an MBA and an MPA from Harvard, executed a nearly $20 billion initial public offering for Visa, the largest IPO in U.S. history at that time.

Bernstein’s passion for promoting clean energy and slowing climate change led to a career shift at Goldman Sachs. While most investment banks were cutting back or shutting down their clean tech businesses, Bernstein brought new ideas to the firm about how renewable energy could be a cost-competitive way to slow global warming caused by fossil-fuel consumption.

As Goldman Sachs’ global head of the clean technology and renewables group in the Bay Area, Bernstein led investing for two of the nation’s most innovative clean-tech companies: Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric car manufacturer; and SolarCity, which finances and installs solar-power arrays. He worked on Tesla’s initial public stock offering in 2010 and then led almost $4 billion worth of subsequent financings. Tesla shares jumped from $17 in June 2010 to more than $230 this month.

Two years after joining the Haas School Board in 2007, Bernstein delivered the school’s undergraduate commencement speech. In 2012, Bernstein and his wife, Marcella, made a major contribution to establish the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute, which coordinates the university’s energy and climate efforts. Bernstein serves as a board member and advisor to the Institute.

“Stuart brings leadership and passion to his life and career—and to his work as a Haas board member and with the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute,” Dean Rich Lyons says. “As an environmental and financial leader, he is an inspiration. It’s a privilege to have him in our community.”

Bahna, who passed away Feb. 24, 2014, drove countless innovations in the travel industry. After graduating from Haas, he worked to turn Trans World Airlines (TWA) around by inventing business class. He then led a turnaround as CEO at Cunard Line in the 1980s and in 1993 founded Club Quarters, membership-based hotels in high-demand urban centers.  Bahna was a founding investor in Priceline.com, serving as a board chairman from 2004 to 2013.

A member of the Haas School Board, Bahna was a generous supporter of Berkeley-Haas. He also worked with Dean Rich Lyons on the Haas School’s innovative leader curriculum. In August 2012, Bahna shared his “secret sauce” for leading change in a rare talk with Berkeley MBA students.

Bahna described how to become a thinker to solve problems and transform organizations. “If a person can add another half hour or an hour in a week [to thinking], their power increases immensely," he told students.  

To attend the 13th Annual Haas Gala, RSVP by October 31 at the Gala website: http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/alumni/haasgala/.

Five firms led by Haas alumni recently made the San Francisco Business Times’ Fast 100 list of the Bay Area’s fastest growing private companies. The honored Haas-led companies include TubeMogul, New Avenue, Back to the Roots, Modify Watches, and cPrime.

The 2014 class of the Fast 100 are drawn from nearly every industry, including food companies, e-commerce startups, and software firms. Even the slowest among the Fast 100 had more than 50 percent growth from fiscal years 2011 to 2013, the time framed used for this list.

Here’s more on each:

TubeMogul (#35)

After several years of explosive growth, TubeMogul’s days as a private company are over. It went public in July 2014, raising just under $44 million. TubeMogul was co-founded by (CEO) Brett Wilson, John Hughes, and Mark Rotblat, all MBA 07, who met in an MBA class on entrepreneurship at the Haas School’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship. The Emeryville, Ca.-based online video ad company grew 265.4 percent between 2011 and 2013. The founders offer key advice to entrepreneurs in the Fast 100 article: "In the early stages of any company, it’s critical that you’re able to do everything yourselves: build, sell, recruit, raise money, literally everything. No one will do it for you. But as you grow and evolve, it’s critical that you transition from an entrepreneur into an executive that can lead, manage, and empower others."

New Avenue (#46)

CEO Kevin Casey, MBA 09, founded New Avenue as an online platform for custom home construction in 2009. The Emeryville, Ca.-based company grew 175.5 percent from 2011 to 2013. Casey commented on the decision that most influenced the company's fast growth: “We decided to focus on solving the problem of housing, financial security, and helping families stay close together. This is a huge problem both in market size and in direct impact for every single client.”
 

Back to the Roots (#57)

Ro Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora, co-founded Back to the Roots, which produces home mushroom-growing kits and a self-cleaning fish tank that grows food called AquaFarm. Back to the Roots grew 137.2 percent from 2011 to 2013.  Asked by Fast 100 editors what decision most influenced the company's fast growth, they say: “The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" is equally true for business - we wouldn't be here without the support we received from the incredible community around us. From mentors through InnerCityAdvisors, to our first capital from Fund Good Jobs and Beneficial State Bank, to our first customers at the Berkeley Whole Foods — we owe a massive thank you to our community!”

Modify Watches (#75)

Aaron Schwartz, CEO, MBA 10, founded Modify with Gary Coover, MBA 10, and Liz Callahan, MBA 11. The San Francisco-based watch designer grew 96.5 percent from 2011 to 2013.  On the company’s biggest mistake, Schwartz says: "We spent a lot of time pursuing growth in multiple channels, instead of just focusing on our main strength: customizing watches for company gifts.

Advice for other entrepreneurs? "Within your network you have answers to all of the issues that you're going to come across. So be open with your struggles and ask for help — people will step up, they want you to succeed!"

 cPrime (#99)

Zubin Irani, CEO, BCEMBA 13, co-founded this Foster City, Ca.-based project management consulting and staffing company, which grew 59.8 percent from 2011 to 2013. CPrime has made the Fast 100 for an impressive seven straight years and has also been named one of the Top 500 Fastest Growing companies in Inc. Magazine. Founded in 2003, the company has 90 employees. On a decision that contributed to the company's growth, Irani says: "We stopped trying to push our solutions to our clients and started to ask them what their biggest problems were that they needed help solving. We made sure we helped solved those.  It made us more valuable to them, and the products we sold were what our clients wanted."

UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks issued the following statement on the passing of the university’s dear and trusted friend:

The University of California, Berkeley, mourns the loss of Barclay Simpson, a larger-than-life figure in business, arts, government and philanthropy — and a passionate supporter of Cal. He passed away Saturday evening (Nov. 8) at the age of 93.

Barc, as his friends and family knew him, stood enthusiastically for economic innovation and social progress, equity and access to education for young people, and excellence in diverse spheres from the arts to business to athletics.

Barclay Simpson loved Cal wholeheartedly.

He and his wife, Sharon, have left an indelible legacy across the campus. You see it from the Simpson Center for Student-Athlete High Performance, which is a game-changer for student-athletes, to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; and from undergraduate scholarships to the Haas School of Business and the University Library.

He was a major force in the initiative to replace BAM/PFA’s seismically challenged museum building on Bancroft Way. The new museum will open to the public in early 2016 in downtown Berkeley at the historic, former site of UC Press — yet another testimonial to the lasting impact of Barc and Sharon’s leadership and philanthropy.

He and Sharon also co-chaired The Campaign for Berkeley, which concluded a few months ago, raising $3.13 billion from more than 281,000 donors. In addition to his campaign work, Barc served two terms as board president at BAM/PFA and as a UC Berkeley Foundation trustee.

For Barc, the love affair with Cal can be traced to his childhood. His mother attended Berkeley and worked as a schoolteacher in Oakland. Growing up in Oakland during the Great Depression, he recalled sneaking over a fence to catch Cal football games for free as a boy. Cal was a major presence in his life already.

While a Berkeley student during World War II, he signed up as a U.S. Naval Air Corps pilot and deployed with his fellow “Flying Golden Bears” to the Pacific. The war and the demands of his business disrupted his studies, yet he maintained his connection to campus through the years and earned a B.S. degree in business administration in 1966.

“I’ve loved the school since I was a little kid, and that hasn’t changed at all,” he said earlier this year in a video for The Campaign for Berkeley. “I think supporting Cal is doing a great deal for society.”

Barc founded one of the world’s most successful firms, Simpson Manufacturing, which builds structural connectors (Simpson Strong-Ties) that are the industry standard.

Yet he was more than a successful entrepreneur. He was an advocate for equity and access — for employees at his plants, for young people from underserved communities in the Bay Area and for the general public. If you have ever taken BART to San Francisco International Airport, you are a beneficiary of his leadership; he almost single-handedly put together the deal that led to the transit extension to the airport when he served on the BART Board of Directors.

Barc and Sharon have supported Girls Inc. of Alameda County. This reflects their conviction that helping young women early in life will transform their lives and serve society in the long run. Among the many community organizations they have championed are the California Shakespeare Theater and the Oakland Museum of California.

At an event honoring him, he once paraphrased Martin Luther King Jr. by saying, “Don’t forget that the only thing that makes philanthropy necessary is social injustice.”

In 2006, he received the Chancellor’s Award in recognition of his many years of leadership and service to Berkeley and the UC Berkeley Foundation. The Haas School of Business also named him the Business Leader of the Year for 2005.

In 2013, he received the Berkeley Medal, the university’s highest honor, for his leadership and many contributions to society.

Over the decades, several university chancellors have had the privilege of working with Barc, and he developed lasting friendships with them. Chancellor Emeritus Robert J. Birgeneau had a particularly close relationship with Barc, and he put it best when he conferred the Berkeley Medal to him in 2013.

“Barc, in everything that you have achieved, you have enriched the lives of those around you — mind, body and spirit. You embody the very best of Berkeley, and our highest ideals of access, excellence and commitment to service.”

Barc is survived by his wife, Sharon, seven children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A federal judge, a Cal linebacker, multiple CEOs, an Olympic swimmer, and a Nobel laureate are among the University of California-Berkeley luminaries getting the word out about the Big Give—Berkeley’s first 24-hour campus-wide online fundraiser.

On November 20, university supporters will have one day to make donations to a favorite school, program, or other part of campus. All Big Give donations benefit students, teaching, and research.

Preparations for the Big Give include a video and a social media campaign. Spreading the word, Haas Dean Rich Lyons appeared on Facebook last week with a “Big Innovation” card. Haas Professor Emeritus David Aaker holds a “Big Brand” card, and Haas Lecturer Steve Etter showcases a “Big Network” sign.

UC Berkeley organized the Big Give to reach out to its 450,000 alumni worldwide—and bring those alumni, students, Cal parents, and friends together for one day.

On the day of the fundraiser, Big Give team members will be in the Haas courtyard, asking students, faculty, and staff to participate and post selfies to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using #CalBigGive. (Alumni may participate at BigGive.berkeley.edu/haas.)

Among the UC Berkeley community luminaries appearing in the Big Give video are Molecular and Cell Biology Professor and 2013 Nobel Prize winner Randy Schekman, 12-time Olympic swimming medalist Natalie Coughlin, B.A. 05, and NPR Morning Edition host Renee Montagne, B.A. 73. (“Big Discoveries,” “Big Splash,” and “Big News” are their messages.)

Also featured are Michelle Kiang, CEO of Chirp Microsystems, and Erica Warp, PhD 12, (Neuroscience), CEO of Kizoom, both Berkeley-Haas startup SkyDeck projects.

While no specific fundraising goal has been set, all funds raised at the Big Give site and at give.berkeley.edu will be tallied continuously during the event.

Big Give donors will also have the chance to participate in contests that reward schools, colleges, or programs based on their Big Give success. Two day-long contests and eight hourly contests are planned.

Rules on how the contests work are posted at BigGive.berkeley.edu/faq.

What do you expect the impact of the new North Academic Building to be?

There is a strong reputational case to be made for this new building. Over the past 20 years, our school has experienced a spike in visibility and rankings, alumni engagement and giving, and employer engagement. We want to make sure we continue on this trajectory.

The North Academic Building also allows us to grow our highly selective programs. In the current building, for example, our classrooms limit our MBA cohort size to 60 students. The new building makes it possible to increase cohorts up to 76 students, which strengthens both our financial model and our partnerships with employers.

20 years ago Haas moved into its current facilities. How did that change things for Haas?

Moving into our current beautiful buildings in 1995 was an inflection point. The new building enabled us to grow self-supporting programs by some 300 percent. The resulting financial strength allowed us to compete for and win top-of-the-market faculty. It stoked a sense of belonging and affiliation among our students and graduates, and it raised our profile with employers.

Today, 20 years later, we have exhausted the lift from our current buildings. Our classrooms in Cheit Hall are booked solid, not just during the week but in the evening and even on the weekend. We had 1,300 degree-program students in 1995; now we have 2,200. There is no room to grow or expand into the opportunities we face. So it is time to create a new inflection point.

Considering the shift toward online education, some might say why build on campus?

I anticipate that Haas may increasingly explore hybrid models of teaching that combine online learning with learning together in the classroom. Like all leading schools, Haas is experimenting diligently in the area of top-quality synchronous and asynchronous digital education.

For example, Haas has been offering one of its most popular courses, Prof. Cameron Anderson’s Power & Politics, as a hybrid. It’s been a huge success, and not just with students. Anderson himself says that he has learned a lot about how to customize learning and claims that he will never teach in the classroom in the same way again.

I don’t believe that online education will ever completely replace the need to come to campus to meet people, learn from each other, and have an experience together. That’s why our North Academic Building will offer different styles and sizes of classrooms, study rooms, etc. It will also have the infrastructure to support all the latest educational technologies.

Is there a financial case to be made for this new building?

Absolutely. Our estimates put the financial lift from the new building at about $6 million in net resources a year. That is the equivalent of $100 million in endowment.

More than 20 percent of our revenues currently come from our (non-degree) executive education program. Exec Ed has lacked the room to grow in the form that the clients want, namely, room that is part of the Haas School proper. Having more classrooms will definitely help.

How does the building reflect the mission and culture of Berkeley-Haas?

Our mission is to develop leaders who redefine how we do business—and who do so responsibly. Environmental stewardship is a key aspect of responsible business. It was important for us to construct a building that meets the latest standards in environmental conservation. We designed the North Academic Building to meet certified LEED Gold status and we may be able to raise it to Platinum status as we complete construction.

The North Academic Building is also designed to encourage community, both within Haas and within the greater community that surrounds us. Overlooking the San Francisco Bay Area from our magnificent event space will give you a sense of perspective of the innovation ecosystem of which Haas is a part. Our new building and the newly renovated courtyard that connects it to our existing buildings will play a central role in boosting new connections and new ideas.

Read more here.

The Haas School of Business has begun construction of a new six-story academic building devoted entirely to student learning and interaction, Dean Rich Lyons announced today.

The $60 million structure will be funded with private donations from alumni and friends of the school. 

The building is scheduled to be completed for use in the fall term 2016.

The nearly 80,000-square-foot North Academic Building will serve as a learning laboratory featuring state-of-the art technology and flexible spaces aimed at transforming the student experience. The building will contain many group study rooms, flexible classrooms, a large event space with sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay, and no administrative offices. The building will be able to adapt to new forms of educational technology and learning. 

Explore more details here.

"This new academic building will readily support and improve both on-campus and technology-enabled learning for our undergraduate and graduate students and enable the school to keep pace with rapid changes in the delivery of management education,” said Rich Lyons, dean of the Haas School. "The goal of the new facility is to create the best, most up-to-date learning experience for our students. It’s all about them.”

He added: “The building also creates a place that will enhance our ability to teach innovative leadership concepts to our students, by providing abundant space for them to collaborate with one another as they learn in teams, and rooms for them to engage in applied innovation learning activities. This is at the core of what differentiates the Berkeley-Haas education.”

Alumni played a key role in making this building possible. Ned Spieker, BS 66, managing partner of the private real estate firm Spieker Partners; was the school’s lead partner for developing the vision for this building. The Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund; Robert G. O’Donnell, BS 65 and MBA 66, retired senior VP and director of Capital Research and Management Company; and the late Barclay Simpson, BS 43, who founded and chaired Simpson Manufacturing Co.; among others, have also contributed significant gifts to the campaign.

The North Academic Building was designed by Perkins+Will. The global architecture firm is known for its innovative and award-winning designs including for clients in higher education. Vance Brown Builders of Palo Alto, Calif., is the general contractor.

The North Academic Building will provide an additional 858 classroom seats through a variety of classroom sizes and styles. By removing tiered seating, the eight larger classrooms can easily convert to flat, flexible use rooms or new classroom designs in the future. Each classroom has the infrastructure to provide video streaming and capture as well as video teleconferencing.

The North Academic Building contains:

• 8 tiered lecture rooms
• 4 flat, flexible-use space for experiential learning
• 28 team-based study rooms
• an indoor/outdoor café
• lounge areas with configurable seating
• a 300-seat event space with sweeping views of campus and the San Francisco Bay

Leveraging its location in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley Bay Area, the Haas School has pioneered many programs and experiences tied to the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem of this area. The school’s mission is to develop innovative leaders who can bring fresh ideas to every corner and every function of their organizations, and who do so responsibly.

Because Berkeley-Haas is committed to environmental responsibility, the North Academic Building has been designed to achieve at least certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold status in recognition of its environmentally conscious design, construction, operation, and maintenance.

The North Academic Building will be the fourth building and an important addition to the existing three-building Haas campus, which includes the newly renovated Robert G. O'Donnell Courtyard and the new Berkeley-Haas Innovation Lab, located across the street at Cal Memorial Stadium.

Thanks to the opening of the current Haas buildings in 1995, the school’s reputation and external rankings have flourished, while enrollment has nearly doubled to more than 2,200 students in six degree programs: Undergraduate, Full-time MBA, Evening & Weekend MBA, Berkeley MBA for Executives, Master’s of Financial Engineering, and PhD in business administration.

Read a Q&A with Dean Lyons here.

Campaign reaches 50% of goal with days left to donate

Learn more and donate to the campaign.

On any given day, a child’s little hands touch hundreds of surfaces and other people – all laden with germs that can make him or her sick.

Teaching children in disadvantaged regions about the importance of hand washing to prevent infections is the primary goal of Hygiene Heroes, a curriculum-based healthcare program developed by Prof. David Levine at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. The program needs a “helping hand” and has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Berkeley-Haas Crowdfund, the business school’s own fundraising platform. Hygiene Heroes hopes to raise $8000 by Feb. 16. 

Through interactive styles of learning, such as stories, games, and songs, Hygiene Heroes teaches children in Asia, Africa, and South American how to practice good personal hygiene and safe water usage. Levine’s team of UC Berkeley (including Haas) undergraduate researchers seeks travel funds to send them to partner schools in Chennai, India, this summer. There, the students will train local teachers and serve as global liaisons. Funds raised will also allow the team to purchase needed classroom supplies for the children.

“The last two summers we piloted our lessons in Chennai,” says Prof. Levine. “The children enjoyed our material and, more importantly, adopted healthier habits. We have adapted the curriculum to the communities’ feedback and look forward to returning and helping more children.”

Eventually the research team plans to share its curriculum with nonprofit organizations for global distribution.

Previously, Prof. Levine, along with Brett Green and William Fuchs, both assistant professors at Berkeley-Haas, raised $16,000 to fund their research on safer cook stoves for rural communities in developing countries.

Berkeley Crowdfund launched in 2014 to “help and attract engagement and financial support for research and innovation, community activity, and entrepreneurial ventures that typically fall between the campus’ normal funding methods and models.”

Jon Sebastiani and his team came into the 2011 Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class with several key observations, Haas Lecturer Steve Blank writes in Forbes:

• Snack foods were a large  ~$35 billion, but the moribund food category was starving for innovation and modernization
• Meat snacks were a $2.5 billion subcategory of snacks. So there was plenty of data that proved that Americans loved to snack and loved meat snacks.
• There was an opportunity for a new company “Jerky 2.0.” in the snack food market
• Jon believed his competition was the conventional “Meat Guys” (the existing beef jerky companies).

Read more of Blank's article here.