Progress Magazine Annual Report 2011 - Eller College of ...
Progress Magazine Annual Report 2011 - Eller College of ...
Progress Magazine Annual Report 2011 - Eller College of ...
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LOUIS A. MYERS, JR.<br />
(1922-<strong>2011</strong>)<br />
Louis A. Myers, Jr.—a native<br />
Arizonan—completed his<br />
bachelor’s degree in<br />
business administration at<br />
the UA in 1943, followed by<br />
an MBA in 1950. His passion<br />
for education came full<br />
circle—he was hired as the<br />
accounting department’s<br />
third full-time instructor in<br />
1948. While serving the<br />
accounting department as<br />
assistant, associate and then<br />
full pr<strong>of</strong>essor, Myers was<br />
honored with multiple<br />
awards, including the Bobcat<br />
Outstanding Faculty Award,<br />
Outstanding Teacher <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Year, and the UA Creative<br />
Teaching Award. He was<br />
chair <strong>of</strong> the department<br />
from 1959 to1966.<br />
Myers was also committed to<br />
various Arizona Athletics,<br />
Pac-10, and national<br />
collegiate athletics boards,<br />
councils, and committees.<br />
He was inducted into the<br />
UA Sports Hall <strong>of</strong> Fame in<br />
1984. Myers's energy and<br />
enthusiasm for his Wildcat<br />
roots resulted in the<br />
establishment <strong>of</strong> an endowed<br />
accounting pr<strong>of</strong>essorship in<br />
his name. Created in 1987<br />
with funding from UA<br />
accounting alumni and<br />
Arizona accounting firms,<br />
it is one <strong>of</strong> the oldest<br />
endowments in the <strong>Eller</strong><br />
<strong>College</strong> <strong>of</strong> Management, and<br />
is held by accounting<br />
department head Dan Dhaliwal.<br />
EDWARD E. ZAJAC<br />
(1926-<strong>2011</strong>)<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Emeritus <strong>of</strong> Economics<br />
Edward E. Zajac was born in<br />
Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated<br />
as valedictorian <strong>of</strong> his class at<br />
Cleveland's prestigious West<br />
Tech High School and was then<br />
drafted into WWII, during which<br />
he served as a radioman in a<br />
tank division, and later in U.S.<br />
Army intelligence, hunting for<br />
Nazi war criminals and bringing<br />
them to justice.<br />
After his discharge from the<br />
Army, Zajac studied engineering<br />
at Cornell University, where he<br />
was again valedictorian <strong>of</strong> his<br />
class, followed by master’s and<br />
doctoral degrees from Princeton<br />
and Stanford, respectively. He<br />
then launched a 30-year career<br />
with AT&T's Bell Telephone<br />
Laboratories in New Jersey,<br />
starting in the mathematics<br />
research unit and later as head<br />
<strong>of</strong> economics research. It was<br />
there that he developed a<br />
two-gyro system to keep<br />
communications satellites<br />
pointed toward Earth. He is<br />
recognized as the first person<br />
in history to create computer<br />
animation, at first as a visual<br />
means to share with his<br />
colleagues the positions <strong>of</strong><br />
satellites as they orbit Earth.<br />
After the break-up <strong>of</strong> AT&T,<br />
Zajac moved to Tucson to<br />
become head <strong>of</strong> the Department<br />
<strong>of</strong> Economics at the UA. A prize<br />
for UA doctoral students was<br />
established in his honor by his<br />
colleagues in the Department<br />
<strong>of</strong> Economics.<br />
Watch Zajac’s fourminute<br />
animation<br />
<strong>of</strong> an earth-orbiting<br />
satellite.<br />
eller progress n fall <strong>2011</strong> 27