| In a first-rank college, perhaps the most
critical leadership post after the President is the Chair of the
Board of Trustees. Just as the President must shape the faculty and
curriculum and lead the staff, the Chair of the Board leads the 40
busy, skilled, diverse members of the Bates Board of Trustees. The
Chair is responsible for visionary leadership, monitoring
Bates’ year-by-year health, but also seeing what the College
might become in 20 years with the right strategic decisions.
Inevitably, the President and the Chair will be at the heart of the
most promising, complex or difficult decisions facing Bates, with
commitments of hundreds of hours of time. Perhaps a major
difference is that the President is doing this as a day job, while
the Board Chair is a volunteer. The Board Chair also needs
extraordinary financial and fund-raising skills -- most
seven-figure gifts directly involve the Chair of the Board. But the
Board Chair must also have astute interpersonal skills. Jim Moody
has served Bates with extraordinary success on all these fronts.
Jim came to Bates from Westbrook High School in 1949, played
basketball all four years at Bates, and graduated with a degree in
Economics Cum Laude. After service as an Army counterintelligence
officer and with General Electric, Jim joined Hannaford Brothers in
1959, and committed the rest of his working career to this firm,
becoming the CEO in 1973 and Chairman of the Board in 1984, a
position he held until his retirement in 1997. Under Jim’s
leadership, Hannaford grew from a small wholesaler to be a
multi-billion dollar firm, one of Maine’s largest
corporations and the largest food distributer in Northern New
England. Jim Moody began his tenure as a Trustee of Bates in 1968,
and served continuously as a Trustee for 34 years, until his
retirement from the Board in 2002. He served as Chair of the Board
for 14 years, from 1987 until 2001, when at Commencement he was
given an honorary degree from the College. Jim Moody’s range
of personal support for Bates includes virtually every need Bates
has had. Moody House, the Moody Family Professorship in the
Performing Arts, The Moody Board Room in Pettengill, the Moody
Scholarship, the Charles A. Bucknam '53 Athletic Fund that honors a
teammate, and the endowment for the Harward Center with its Harward
Professorship are only the most visible of his philanthropic
contributions to Bates. But in addition to his financial support,
Jim has been an extraordinarily active and influential alumnus. He
has been known to and trusted by generations of Bates people, being
involved with virtually every facet of Bates’ work for over
50 years. He is a man of deep conviction and great thoughtfulness.
His unfailing respect, courtesy and sensitivity have been noted
many times by the college staff members and volunteers with whom he
has worked. His personal modesty has been matched at every turn by
his desire to support Bates’ most pressing need. On the
occasion of the inauguration of the Moody Family Professorship in
the Performing Arts, Jim commented that he hoped the gift would
strengthen the foundation of Bates for future generations, and
encouraged others to be as optimistic about Bates as he was,
saying, “As the years pass, I have more and more appreciation
for the possible infinite life of Bates. Perhaps one has to live
for a while before you get that feeling. Compared to our lives,
Bates’ life can be eternal.” Sixty years after he
entered Bates as a new basketball player, one of his yearly Bates
outings is a basketball alumni golf tournament with teammates who
have been his life-long friends. For his powerful support of Bates,
his reflective decency toward others that so captures the Bates
spirit, and his visionary leadership as a Trustee and Board Chair,
we are honored to welcome Jim Moody into the Bates Scholar-Athlete
Society. |
A business giant has been one of Bates' greatest allies for
decades
|
