Faculty image James F. Brinkerhoff Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer University Administration
Biography/Memoir

James F. Brinkerhoff, professor of business administration and former vice president and chief financial officer, will retire on June 30, 1989, after a career of extraordinary service to the University of Michigan.

Born in Chicago, Mr. Brinkerhoff attended public schools in Hamburg, New York, and attended Alma College from 1941-43. His education was interrupted by service with the United States Army in the Pacific Theatre during World War II, for which he was awarded the Silver Star in 1944. After the war, he earned his B.B.A. degree at the University of Toledo in 1947 and his M.B.A. degree at the University of Michigan in 1948.

Mr. Brinkerhoff began his professional career in 1948 as the personnel manager of Square D Company in Detroit. In 1951, he took a position with Argus Cameras in Ann Arbor, where, over the next ten years, he worked his way up from executive assistant to the president to vice president for operations. Mr. Brinkerhoff first came to the University of Michigan in 1962 as director of plant extension. In 1967, he was promoted to director of business
operations, and in 1970, associate vice president. In 1971, Mr. Brinkerhoff moved to the University of Minnesota, where he served as vice president for finance, planning, and operations (later expanded to vice president for finance and development) and professor of management. He returned to the University of Michigan in 1977 to assume the role of vice president and chief financial officer, and in 1984, he was named professor of business administration. He relinquished his role as vice president and chief financial officer in June of 1988.

In addition to his professional roles, Mr. Brinkerhoff has been an active participant in civic and community affairs. He served on the Ann Arbor City Council from 1958-60, and has served in leadership roles in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, United Fund, First Presbyterian Church, and other charitable and civic organizations
in Ann Arbor and Minneapolis. Mr. Brinkerhoffs expertise has benefited a wide variety of business, educational, and professional organizations; among the boards he has served on are Chemotronics International (chairman of the board from 1963-79); the American Management Association; the Eastern, Central and National Associations of College and University Business Officers; the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy; Alma College; College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF); Research Libraries Group (RLG); and General Automotive Corporation.

In all of his endeavors, Jim Brinkerhoff has exhibited outstanding qualities of leadership, integrity, and strength that have been of inestimable value to his colleagues, the Regents, and the University. As he enters this new phase of his life, the Regents trust that the University can continue to benefit from his sage counsel.

For his exemplary service, the Regents now name James F. Brinkerhoff Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Business Administration.

Regents’ Proceedings, June 1989, Page 278

 

Reflections/Stories

After five years at Minnesota, 
Jim Brinkerhoff is 'home' again
 as VP and chief financial officer
.

His Mission:
 Keeping Michigan Number One


Jim Brinkerhoff has a favorite
 motto by which he likes to operate.
 "If it weren't for them," it runs, 
"there'd be none of us."


What he means, obviously, is 
that, if it weren't for the University's faculty, there wouldn't be any
 need to have administrators because there wouldn't be any students to teach.


James F. Brinkerhoff has "come 
home" to the University of Michigan as vice president and chief 
financial officer (succeeding Wilbur 
K. Pierpont), a position most would
 acknowledge as among the top administrative jobs at the U-M.


Brinkerhoff "came home" after 
five years at the University of Minnesota as vice president for finance 
and development. He holds an 
MBA (1948) from Michigan and had 
been an administrator here before 
the Minnesota offer came.


Was it a difficult decision, electing to return to Ann Arbor? "Both Marge (Mrs. Brinkerhoff) and I enjoyed the Twin Cities, the state of Minnesota and the University very
 much — but Ann Arbor has really 
been our home since 1947. I told the
 president of the University of Minnesota that the University of Michigan is the only institution that I 
would have considered leaving
 Minnesota for."

Filling up his battered old pipe 
(with Amphora), Brinkerhoff said that his decision to return to Michigan was largely based on "which
 was the most interesting management challenge — to keep Number
 One as Number One or to be in the 
middle of the pack and driving for 
the Number One status. Obviously, I thought that keeping 
Number One on top was the 
tougher of the problems."


Asked what he sees as the major
 problems facing the University to-
day, Brinkerhoff mentioned first 
"the obvious problem of morale in
 the faculty and staff. Trying to 
achieve a high morale when
 everyone has been operating under 
more and more stringent budget
 conditions creates a problem — and 
yet, I don't think it is in surmountable. Dollars need not be the primary 
force in order to achieve a high level
 of incentive, a high level of initiative and a strong drive to succeed
 and to maintain top-flight academic 
departments."


Will the Brinkerhoff approach
 differ significantly from the Pierpont approach?


"The key difference, I suppose,
 would be the product of our dissimilar backgrounds. Bill came
 more through the academic enterprise, rather than from industry, as 
I did. He came out of the cost accounting area and that may be contrasted with my background in
 labor relations and general management. I have always been more 
substantially at ease in the fields of 
personnel management and labor
 relations, but less at ease in the 
fields of accounting, cashiering functions and the investment area.
 That is not to say that Bill was insensitive to the personnel and human 
relations factors, nor is it to say that
 my five years at Minnesota didn't
 sensitize me to the needs of the accounting and financial operations
 of the institution.


"I guess that would pretty much 
highlight the difference in our approaches to the job. I suppose one
 other factor is that, in the last five to
 eight years, Bill has not participated
 as directly in the legislative or appropriations processes, where as I 
was thrown into that operation on a 
first-line basis at Minnesota."


Do you expect to be involved in
 those processes here?
 "That depends on what the
 president wishes in terms of the structure here, but it would certainly indicate an area in which I've 
had some practical experience. "


"My initial objective is to familiarize myself with the internal operations that report to me. I will be 
spending a good deal of time with
 each of the deans and some major 
departments ... to find out how 
they visualize what's going on in 
their shops, both the good things 
and the bad things."

Brinkerhoff said he wants to be 
sure "there is a minimum of redundancy in activities on the campus.
 One of the things that concerns me 
is that, over the years, there's been a 
fairly substantial increase — quite 
appropriately — in the administrative capacity of the various deans'
 offices. I'm not sure that that has 
been offset by reductions in the 
central offices. I'm not dedicated to 
the concept that it's more efficient 
to do everything centrally because,
 as soon as you move along that line,
 you tend to lose the incentives
 which tire appropriate for the development of the capacity of the
 academic units."


As for his side interests, Jim
 Brinkerhoff likes golf and small boat sailing (they've maintained a cottage at nearby Base Lake, but unfortunately it burned to the ground
 while the Brinkerhoffs were attending the Rose Bowl game).

"I'm always having some novel
 or another going, but my primary 
at-home reading is business reading because my days are pretty well taken up by meetings." Do you
 watch TV? "Basically I watch football, Big Ten basketball and Baa Baa
 Blacksheep. I enjoy that since I was 
in the Pacific during World War II."


In his earlier days in Ann Arbor,
 Jim Brinkerhoff served on the Ann
 Arbor City Council (as a Republican), as chairman of the United Fund, as president of the Rotary 
Club, and in many of the chairs at the First Presbyterian Church.


If you had your absolute choice,
 Jim Brinkerhoff, what job would
 you be in today?
" I would like to be vice president 
and chief financial officer of the
 University of Michigan — in Cored
 Gables, Florida."

His battered pipe in place, James Brinkerhoff (left) discusses his goals as the 
U-M's new vice president and chief financial officer.


The Michigan Alumnus, March 1, 1977, Page 18

 

 

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