Progress Magazine Annual Report 2011 - Eller College of ...

LOUIS A. MYERS, JR.
(1922-2011)
Louis A. Myers, Jr.—a native
Arizonan—completed his
bachelor’s degree in
business administration at
the UA in 1943, followed by
an MBA in 1950. His passion
for education came full
circle—he was hired as the
accounting department’s
third full-time instructor in
1948. While serving the
accounting department as
assistant, associate and then
full professor, Myers was
honored with multiple
awards, including the Bobcat
Outstanding Faculty Award,
Outstanding Teacher of the
Year, and the UA Creative
Teaching Award. He was
chair of the department
from 1959 to1966.
Myers was also committed to
various Arizona Athletics,
Pac-10, and national
collegiate athletics boards,
councils, and committees.
He was inducted into the
UA Sports Hall of Fame in
1984. Myers's energy and
enthusiasm for his Wildcat
roots resulted in the
establishment of an endowed
accounting professorship in
his name. Created in 1987
with funding from UA
accounting alumni and
Arizona accounting firms,
it is one of the oldest
endowments in the Eller
College of Management, and
is held by accounting
department head Dan Dhaliwal.
EDWARD E. ZAJAC
(1926-2011)
Professor Emeritus of Economics
Edward E. Zajac was born in
Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated
as valedictorian of his class at
Cleveland's prestigious West
Tech High School and was then
drafted into WWII, during which
he served as a radioman in a
tank division, and later in U.S.
Army intelligence, hunting for
Nazi war criminals and bringing
them to justice.
After his discharge from the
Army, Zajac studied engineering
at Cornell University, where he
was again valedictorian of his
class, followed by master’s and
doctoral degrees from Princeton
and Stanford, respectively. He
then launched a 30-year career
with AT&T's Bell Telephone
Laboratories in New Jersey,
starting in the mathematics
research unit and later as head
of economics research. It was
there that he developed a
two-gyro system to keep
communications satellites
pointed toward Earth. He is
recognized as the first person
in history to create computer
animation, at first as a visual
means to share with his
colleagues the positions of
satellites as they orbit Earth.
After the break-up of AT&T,
Zajac moved to Tucson to
become head of the Department
of Economics at the UA. A prize
for UA doctoral students was
established in his honor by his
colleagues in the Department
of Economics.
Watch Zajac’s fourminute
animation
of an earth-orbiting
satellite.
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