ASU Retirees Association (ASURA) Video History Project Interviews

Charlie Arntzen joined ASU in August 2000 as the Florence Ely Nelson Presidential Endowed Chair and retired in 2016 from the School of Life Sciences and Biodesign Institute. Charlie was the founding Director of the Biodesign Institute.
Important ASU stories include:
1) the creation of the Biodesign Institute,
2) the design and operation of the Biodesign labs,
3) the development of ZMapp to fight Ebola,
4) The New American University - a discussion of the importance of collaboration, and
5) several comments about Presidents Coor and Crow and Provost Glick

Born in Pittsburgh, PA and raised in a small town in Indiana (Seymour, IN), Harold Fearon received his BA in Management and his MBA from Indiana University where he became interested in teaching as a career. After his military service, he went to Michigan State University where he received his PhD in Management with a dissertation titled “Purchasing Research in American Business”. His specialty was industrial purchasing.

Harold was invited to come to ASU to be part of the College of Business by a former professor from IU who had moved to ASU. He talks about how he promised to only stay 2 years and has been here close to 30! During his time at ASU he was chair of the Department of Management in the College of Business. He became chair of the Department of Purchasing, Transportation and Operation which he founded to support the increase in interest in the purchasing field. After his retirement, he established a research institute (the first institute located at the ASU Research Park) that was nationally supported called The Center for Advanced Purchasing Studies (CAPS). He also was the founder and first editor of the “Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management” which is still in publication today. In his spare time, he was co-founder of the Rio Salado Bank, a community bank in Tempe, about which he relates many funny events!