Looking forward, giving back
Business alumnus and wife fund opportunities for students and faculty
As a high school senior, Bob FitzSimmons received a four-year scholarship that allowed him to attend the University of Kansas and study business. More than 55 years after he graduated, FitzSimmons and his wife, Jan, are working to ensure future students have the same opportunities he did.
After earning his business degree from KU, Bob served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Jan was training to be a nurse when they met at the base where they were stationed in South Dakota. After leaving the military, Bob earned an MBA from Northwestern University and worked for more than 24 years as a marketing executive with three major consumer goods companies, overseeing brands such as Cap’n Crunch and Aunt Jemima. He retired from that industry and went on to found FP Wealth Management, a wealth management firm based in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he’s worked for the past 30 years.
Helping clients determine how to make the most of their finances spurred Bob to think about how the couple wanted to allocate their resources. Remembering the scholarship he received, Bob and Jan decided to establish two scholarships for students at his alma mater, Central High School in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he’s involved in the selection process.
“You get a good sense of how important scholarships are to these kids,” he explained.
Encouraged by that process, the family has now established several scholarships for students at KU, including an award for a medical student studying infectious diseases in honor of their late son, Curtis, a KU alumnus, and a geology scholarship named for their son, Clark, who also studied at KU. At the School of Business, Bob and Jan established a scholarship for students interested in pursuing personal finance. They plan to endow all three scholarships at KU by 2022.
The couple also made a $25,000 gift to provide business faculty with summer research funding and have helped support the Business Student Ambassadors Program, which connects visiting prospective students to the School of Business experience.
Wanting to make an impact is at the core of all the couple’s charitable contributions.
“Because these scholarships are in perpetuity, it makes you feel pretty good even though you may not be around to see who receives them; it’s going to go on,” Bob said. “I’m pretty optimistic that it will make a difference over time.”
