Former Penn State Smeal, IST dean and longtime professor Jim Thomas retires

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A visionary, trailblazer and open and communicative leader who endeared himself to students and alumni alike: These are just a few ways colleagues and alumni described James B. Thomas, William Elliott Professor of Risk and Management in the Penn State Smeal College of Business, who retires this year after nearly 36 years at Penn State, which included 31 years with Smeal.

Along with teaching, Thomas notably served two pivotal terms as deans of different colleges — from 2000 to 2006 as the founding dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and then from 2006 to 2012 as dean of Smeal.

“Jim is known as visionary and pragmatic at the same time — a rare combination,” said Matt Schuyler, chair of Penn State's Board of Trustees, former member of the Smeal Board of Visitors and chief brand officer of Hilton. “After serving as founding dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology, as Smeal’s dean he led it through a time of great change. He stabilized our success and introduced generative programs that are thriving to this day.”

Thomas' achievements include expanding the strategic impact of Smeal’s Board of Visitors; launching the college’s honor code; revamping the interdisciplinary curriculum that resonated positively with prospective employers; working with Smeal faculty and students across all 20 campuses to create a cohesive and engaged community; and more.

“Jim was an amazing dean and a ‘bigger than life’ figure,” added Karen Quintos, retired executive vice president and chief customer officer of Dell Technologies Inc. She served on Smeal’s Board of Visitors during Thomas’ time as dean. She is current chair of the board and is a newly appointed member of Penn State’s Board of Trustees.

“He was truly unique in that he had a terrific blend of both ‘business’ and ‘academia,’ and clearly saw the value in both personal and corporate relationships and partnerships as win-win for everyone," she said. "Today, you can still feel and see the legacy he left.”

A return to Penn State

Thomas was no stranger to Penn State when he arrived as an assistant professor of management in 1987. He had earned a bachelor’s in political science from the University as a pre-law student in 1974. He went on to earn his master's degree in government from Florida State University and a doctorate in strategic management from the University of Texas at Austin.

Before coming to Smeal, Thomas held two IT-related positions: he directed information management systems for the Florida Department of State and then led information technology strategic planning for a joint committee of the Florida legislature.

At Smeal, he taught management, strategy and risk management, and was Smeal’s senior associate dean.

After serving on a committee to craft the curriculum for the then new School of Information Sciences and Technology, he was chosen as the founding dean. He oversaw the program’s growth and development across the commonwealth, the school’s transition to becoming a college, and construction of the IST Building (now the Westgate Building) at University Park, known for its curving design and span across Atherton Street.

Longtime colleague Dennis Gioia, distinguished professor of management, emeritus, said Thomas has always been interested in new challenges.

“Jim was appointed as chair of the University committee to operationalize the new School of Information Sciences and Technology — an idea for a new school that involved combining both social and technical knowledge, as well as faculty with different skill sets. It was not an easy gig to do right,” Gioia said. “After an extraordinary amount of work, the committee searching for a new dean of the school concluded that no candidate was better than the person they already had designing it: JT himself.”

Back to Smeal, this time as dean

After six years with IST, Thomas returned to Smeal as the dean and held the title of Surma Dean for the second half of his tenure. Gioia credited his friend’s desire to “not do the same thing over and over again” with an interest in coming back to Smeal as dean.

Thomas noted that his first challenge was to capitalize on the newly completed Business Building to create a more cohesive community. Previously, classes, faculty and administration had been located in disparate parts of the campus.

“The leadership challenge in bringing us all together was to create a sense of culture, identity and family,” Thomas said. “We had a great team of folks and were able to create that community.” 

One critical element of the change was to engage with the Smeal Board of Visitors and add new members with varied expertise to represent the diverse disciplines and student backgrounds and interests, said former Board of Visitors member Martha Jordan, who served as chair when Thomas was appointed dean, right after the new Business Building was opened.

“Jim quickly endeared himself to the longstanding members of the Board of Visitors, and tackled the operational and administrative challenges,” she said. “He did so with a keen focus that the Smeal College was part of the bigger institutional whole of Penn State. His love and loyalty to Penn State as an institution was very evident.”

Program expansion

During Thomas’s time as Smeal dean, the college took a close look at several programs. The former Insurance and Real Estate Department was transformed into the Department of Risk Management, which included three options: actuarial science, enterprise risk management and real estate.

Keith Crocker, former chair of Smeal’s Department of Risk Management and William Elliott Chaired Professor of Insurance and Risk Management, said this would never have happened but for Thomas’s unflagging support and his ability to obtain support from the highest levels of the University for this initiative.

“Jim was also a very strong supporter of our world-class undergraduate actuarial science program and the associated major,” Crocker added. “On his watch, we hired the first professional director of the program, Ron Gebhardtsbauer, who built the Penn State Actuarial Science Program into the largest in the United States, both in terms of the number of majors and the number of students passing the actuarial examinations created by the Society of Actuaries. Because of Ron’s efforts and Jim’s support of actuarial science as a spire of excellence in Smeal, we are now one of a select few programs that are certified as a Center of Actuarial Excellence by the Society of Actuaries.”

Brent Ambrose, professor of real estate, Jason and Julie Borrelli Faculty Chair in Real Estate and director of the Borelli Institute of Real Estate Studies, remembered how Thomas supported the establishment of the Penn State Real Estate Advisory Board. With Thomas’ support, the advisory board contributed both time and financial resources to return the real estate major, which had previously been dropped during budget cuts.

“Fifteen years later, the Penn State Real Estate Advisory Board continues to expand and promote the real estate programs at Penn State,” Ambrose added.

Edward Reutzel, senior associate dean for research and faculty during Thomas’ time as dean, said: “As dean, Jim was very strategic in aligning Smeal’s initiatives with the strategy of the University. This enabled us to secure the resources we needed to pursue our needs.”

In addition, Smeal reconfigured the college’s programs. For example, introductory courses such as management, finance and accounting were offered earlier so students could make an informed decision when they declared their major for the junior year. Also, faculty/student ratios were improved by increasing funding for salaries and hiring and reducing class sizes, which allowed for more personalized, customized learning. As a result, the faculty/student ratio was improved to match the average of the Big Ten business schools.

The revamped interdisciplinary curriculum resonated positively with employers. It helped propel Smeal to the No. 1 spot among top schools for corporate recruiters in the Wall Street Journal in 2010 and to No. 3 in the Big Ten for Businessweek’s 2011 listing of best undergraduate business schools.

“Rankings don’t tell the full story, but they did communicate that there was a recognition that what we were doing had real value,” Thomas said.

Honor Code established

Board of Trustees Chair Schuyler also lauded Thomas for launching efforts with Smeal students and staff to create and codify an approach to ethics and integrity with the Smeal Honor Code: “His trailblazing approach became a best practice across Penn State.”

Linda Klebe Treviño, distinguished professor of organizational behavior and ethics, had her office near Thomas’ for many years in the Management and Organization Department before he moved into administrative roles. When Thomas became Dean of the Smeal College, she said he was the “one who got honor and integrity done.”

“At the time, advisory board members, undergraduate and MBA students were all clamoring for an honor code,” said Treviño, who contributed her own interest and expertise to its development. “Jim quickly gave the students the support they needed and hired the college’s first honor and integrity director to help students create the code and the culture needed to support it. It was a special time in the college, and I will always be grateful to Jim for his leadership.”

“We were the first college to have an honor code," said Thomas. "I think it’s a source of pride for many students as they come through. It moved trust from being something that was punished if it was dishonored to becoming something that students consider what it means in their life and what it means for their career."

He said he has also heard anecdotal stories that the honor code gave Penn State Smeal graduates an edge with potential employers.

Academic and leadership style

Along with the various administrative leadership jobs, Thomas continued teaching.

Gioia, who was in the Smeal Management Department when Thomas joined in 1987, added: “As a teacher, Jim was always topline, perhaps because he had mastered the art of telling good stories. He also had good examples that would make his lectures come alive. He was always great at teaching large-section classes, although I don’t think that setting necessarily came easily to him. For instance, we were part of the same team teaching a large section of Management 100 in the Forum. I remember seeing him pumping himself up to go onstage. That told me that he took his teaching seriously.”

Treviño agreed. “I remember Jim mostly as an award-winning teacher who would pace the hallway to prepare for his classroom ‘performances,’ which students loved,” she said.

Robert Novack, associate professor of supply chain management who also retires this year, said Thomas as a leader was always passionate about doing whatever it took to stand up for, and help, his people.

“If I had a question or concern, I had no reservations about walking into his office — unannounced — to talk with him. He always had time,” said Novack. “He has a great sense of humor, which goes a long way when you are a dean. I always knew he had my — and all other faculty and staff in Smeal — interests at the forefront.”

Reutzel recalls the time he went to Pittsburgh after his mother passed away in 2007.

“One night at the funeral home I looked up to see Jim and Michele [Jim's wife] walking in to pay their respects. His thoughtfulness to console me at this time was touching. I will always remember his kindness. It meant a lot to me,” he said.

Next steps

What does the future hold? According to Thomas there’s nothing specific yet, but that he’s keeping his eye out for interesting opportunities.

“Every step of the way in my career has been serendipity,” he noted. “I didn’t plan to be a dean twice. I didn’t plan to go back to school after the Joint Select Committee on Information Technology for the Florida Legislature — a colleague convinced me to try and I took a chance to go to the University of Texas at Austin for a Ph.D. It worked out okay, to say the least. As of now, I haven’t planned out retirement at all. The grandchildren and travel will be involved, but I don’t know yet what the ‘making a difference’ part will be.”