Development News
James H. Suddeth, Jr. Group Study Room in Graduate Center
Helping Foster Tolerance and "Different Ways of Thinking in This
World"
In this era of terrorism and intolerance, James H. "Jed" Suddeth (MBA '74), president and CEO of Charleston, South Carolina-based First Carolina Risk Management Advisors, hopes that his $100,000 gift to the Moore School will make a difference.
"Because the Moore School of Business has such a wonderful reputation on the international scene," he explains, "I hope this study room [the money will likely be used for the Suddeth Group Study Room in the prospective new Graduate Center] will help the school foster - through commerce - tolerance of various cultures and religions and different ways of thinking in this world.
"If there's any one commonality amongst all cultures and all countries, it's probably commerce, and so I think there's a real role the Moore School can play in that."
Suddeth has a second reason, as well, for donating the money. "There aren't many problems that can't be solved through education," he says, "and I think the Moore School being a real beacon in this state for excellence in education will hopefully provide the leadership at all levels so that people will have something to identify with and say, 'We in South Carolina can be the best, so let's all strive to do that.'"
Suddeth, a member of the school's Envisioning Moore Capital Campaign Committee and of the Business Partnership Foundation's Board of Advisors, has fond memories of his days at Carolina. Originally an electrical engineering major, he took an economics course one semester and "absolutely loved it." He ended up earning his B.A. in Economics at USC in 1968.
Four-and-a-half years in the U.S. Navy followed, where he was stationed out of Pearl Harbor as a weapons officer and an engineering officer on submarines. Suddeth loved subs, but remembered he'd "stand on the bridge of that submarine and kind of dream about business. I loved business."
So after finishing his Navy tour, Suddeth came back to USC and enrolled in the business school's Master of Business Administration program. Several professors had a profound impact on him, he says, including now-retired Distinguished Professor Emeritus Olin Pugh, who told him, "Suddeth, you can do anything you want to do."
Suddeth's MBA - awarded in 1974 - has stood him in good stead over the years. "I can't count the number of times that the practical knowledge I gained in the MBA program has helped me," he says.
He particularly recalls a business policy class where the professor, the retired vice president of a large manufacturing corporation, continually emphasized the necessity of verifying one's data. "He would say, 'Is the data accurate?' I've never forgotten that," Suddeth says. "To this day, I make sure I get as good information as I possibly can before I make a decision."
In this era of terrorism and intolerance, James H. "Jed" Suddeth (MBA '74), president and CEO of Charleston, South Carolina-based First Carolina Risk Management Advisors, hopes that his $100,000 gift to the Moore School will make a difference.
"Because the Moore School of Business has such a wonderful reputation on the international scene," he explains, "I hope this study room [the money will likely be used for the Suddeth Group Study Room in the prospective new Graduate Center] will help the school foster - through commerce - tolerance of various cultures and religions and different ways of thinking in this world.
"If there's any one commonality amongst all cultures and all countries, it's probably commerce, and so I think there's a real role the Moore School can play in that."
Suddeth has a second reason, as well, for donating the money. "There aren't many problems that can't be solved through education," he says, "and I think the Moore School being a real beacon in this state for excellence in education will hopefully provide the leadership at all levels so that people will have something to identify with and say, 'We in South Carolina can be the best, so let's all strive to do that.'"
Suddeth, a member of the school's Envisioning Moore Capital Campaign Committee and of the Business Partnership Foundation's Board of Advisors, has fond memories of his days at Carolina. Originally an electrical engineering major, he took an economics course one semester and "absolutely loved it." He ended up earning his B.A. in Economics at USC in 1968.
Four-and-a-half years in the U.S. Navy followed, where he was stationed out of Pearl Harbor as a weapons officer and an engineering officer on submarines. Suddeth loved subs, but remembered he'd "stand on the bridge of that submarine and kind of dream about business. I loved business."
So after finishing his Navy tour, Suddeth came back to USC and enrolled in the business school's Master of Business Administration program. Several professors had a profound impact on him, he says, including now-retired Distinguished Professor Emeritus Olin Pugh, who told him, "Suddeth, you can do anything you want to do."
Suddeth's MBA - awarded in 1974 - has stood him in good stead over the years. "I can't count the number of times that the practical knowledge I gained in the MBA program has helped me," he says.
He particularly recalls a business policy class where the professor, the retired vice president of a large manufacturing corporation, continually emphasized the necessity of verifying one's data. "He would say, 'Is the data accurate?' I've never forgotten that," Suddeth says. "To this day, I make sure I get as good information as I possibly can before I make a decision."
December 2007