Remembering Smeal's Bob Novack in retirement as an authority, mentor and friend

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For all the titles he’s held during his 37-year tenure at Penn State and ways that he shaped the Smeal College of Business into one of the country’s most formidable programs of its kind, Robert “Bob” Novack is, foremost, a teacher who helped launch the careers of approximately 25,000 students.

Novack, associate professor of supply chain management in the Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems, retired in May. A year earlier, he stepped down as faculty adviser of the Sapphire Leadership Academic Program, which he helped transform. At the time of his departure, the program had a 7% acceptance rate and a job placement rate of 100% for three years running.

Regarded as a “pioneer” in supply chain education, Novack said there’s no doubt about his proudest accomplishment: watching many of his students become business leaders. Prioritizing the needs and interests of his students was a decision he made deliberately after earning tenure.

“I guess I figured I could be more helpful and make a bigger impact by focusing on students, giving them advice, helping them when they need it,” he said. “Because let’s face it: Research is important, don’t get me wrong, but many of the articles that are published are only read by other academics, if that. And so, you don’t have near the impact. And I enjoyed my students.”

His office in the Business Building was often teeming with them, lured there by potato chips, boxes of Hershey candy sent by appreciative graduates who work there now, and cookies that were baked just hours earlier by Novack’s wife, Judith. There was also the constructive conversation, which went both ways.

“I don’t carry a cellphone. I’m not on Facebook. Never texted. Never bought anything online. But I probably know more about social media than most of my peers because the students kept me up to date,” Novack said. “It kept me relevant because it gave me insight into what they were thinking and what was keeping them up at night. I treated them like I treated my own children in that if I wanted to know, I needed to ask.”

The simple act endeared him to countless students.

“Dr. Novack always had the rare ability of projecting gravitas and eliciting immense respect from his students, yet also coming across as approachable and cool,” said David Wu, a 2012 Smeal graduate who, today, works as a supply chain analytics director for Bath & Body Works. “He understood what it meant to be a student. And even though he asked us to study hard, he pushed us to enjoy our college days, too.”

Wu can still vividly recall a lecture that featured a Kay Jewelry commercial with the brainworm of a slogan, “Every kiss begins with Kay.”

“Dr. Novack then said, ‘At Penn State, I’m pretty sure more kisses begin with Natty Light,'” Wu said.

The ‘epitome of student-centric’

Chris Craighead, who was a Smeal professor from 2008 to 2015 and is the current chair of supply chain management at the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, described Novack as a “pioneer” of supply chain education and the “epitome of student-centric."

“His care and efforts to prepare his students for the future are evident to anyone around him,” said Craighead.

As a thesis adviser for the Penn State Schreyer Honors College, Novack supervised “well over 100” theses, according to Richard Stoller, assistant dean for academic affairs for the Schreyer Honors College, “and his enthusiasm for working with students has never wavered."

“In all of his roles, Bob has always put individual students’ success first, and his students have recognized that,” Stoller said. “He understands that while the honors thesis is about advancing knowledge in the field, it’s more about advancing the student’s knowledge and capabilities.”

‘Surrounded by friends’

Dina Guthoff, a Smeal mainstay, was looking for a career change around the time Novack was tasked with turning around the wanting Sapphire Program in 2013. When she agreed to become its new academic director, Novack and his wife gifted her a pair of sapphire earrings, Guthoff said, “as a way of saying, ‘Thank you for believing in what I want to do here.’”

Their relationship predates that moment by many years. Their daughters began playing basketball together about a decade earlier. She described him as genuine, optimistic and humble.

“He allowed me to be the boss, even though he was the boss,” she said. “And he had no problem telling people that.”

Cigars also come to mind when she thinks of Novack, and she’s not the only one.

Ted Stank, chair of Excellence in Business in the Department of Supply Chain Management and faculty director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, fondly recalled, “Bob could always be found after hours at industry/academic conferences with a cigar in his mouth, enjoying the networking camaraderie and surrounded by friends, usually former students. They were lit in the old days, before anti-smoking laws, and more recently unlit, but still in his mouth.”

Given the level of familiarity Novack shared with many of his students, it’s no surprise that he was often invited to have a beer with them. Guthoff knew his standard reply: We can do that after you graduate.

A well-meaning but firm nudge

Roman, the 2020 Smeal graduate, remembers a point early in her sophomore year when she was feeling “overwhelmed and underqualified.” She told Novack she didn’t want to attend a supply-chain career fair for this reason.

“The next five minutes changed my life,” she said.

He asked her to consider the worst that could happen if she did attend, which they decided would be not landing an internship. Then he encouraged her to push herself out of her comfort zone, she said, which culminated in a spirited “Go get them, kid!”

Roman attended the fair and was offered a six-month co-op with Hershey. She said the experience effectively launched her career.

Eden Jacoby, a 2021 Smeal and Sapphire graduate, shared a similar anecdote. During her sophomore year, she was offered an internship in Rhode Island, but she had no interest in going to Rhode Island. Novack, she said, told her she needed to go. And so, she did.

From their first meeting, Jacoby trusted Novack to have her best interests at heart.

“I am who I am today because of my parents and Dr. Novack,” she said. “I knew when I was in high school I wanted to study supply chain, so my dad made me, at every college we visited, meet with the supply chain professors. The meeting with Dr. Novack was unlike any other. When I walked into his office, he had a group of kids sitting in there that he kicked out. I later learned one of them was his son. We just talked about supply chain. Then he told me, ‘If you choose Penn State, I will mentor you, I will take care of you, I will make sure that you succeed here.’ I 100 percent chose Penn State because of that. And he did not let me down on that promise.”

As thanks, Jacoby created a scrapbook that she presented to Novack at a symposium that turned out to be a kind of surprise retirement party for Novack. In order to keep it a secret, she connected with all of Novack’s LinkedIn connections. Then she messaged them individually, sharing her idea and asking them to contribute updates on their lives and well wishes.

In all, 150 people replied. They included former students, old friends, and several buddies from Novack’s association with the Marines.

“I did not get one short reply,” Jacoby said. “Everyone who shared something wrote at least a paragraph. These were stories of how kind and open and caring he was, even to their spouses and kids.”

Many sent photos, too. Jacoby organized all of it and created an album on Shutterfly that came out looking like a cross between a yearbook and a newspaper, she said.

“It’s clean, yet a little chaotic,” she said of the format. “Kind of like Dr. Novack’s teaching style.”

Walking into the sunset

Novack’s history at Penn State extends well beyond his first day as a professor in August 1986. He earned a bachelor’s in logistics from the University in 1977 and then an MBA in 1979.

He said he returned to University Park to teach, in part, because he and Judith, who also graduated from Penn State, could envision starting a family there. Today, they have three adult children and five grandchildren.

Novack said he doesn’t have a “bucket list,” “and I did that on purpose because I don’t want to hit retirement and then all the sudden have this list of things I have to do.”

In fact, he doesn’t have any immediate plans for retirement at all, other than joining Judith, who retired last year as a medical technologist from University Health Services, in spending more time with their kids and grandkids.

“Things like that,” Novack said. “I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. I don’t golf. But I do putter around in the yard. So, I’m just going to putter more.”

Cory Ann Holst, a 1988 Smeal graduate, was among Novack’s first business logistics students. Now a retired senior vice president who worked in supply chain, she said he never stopped caring about her.

“I’ve known him for 39 years and I’ve called upon him often, during good times and bad,” she said. “He was always there for me.”

Sarah Roman, who graduated from Smeal in 2020 after majoring in supply chain and information systems, echoed the sentiment.

“Dr. Novack consistently offered, and continues to offer, career advice and will go to any measure to connect his students and alumni with his broad network of professionals in the industry,” she said.

Roman remembers the personalized attention (and the cookies) each and every time she visited Novack’s office as a student.

“Dr. Novack has a way of making you feel so comfortable when, let’s admit, college can be a complex and confusing time for many students trying to navigate promising futures,” she said.