On April 11, 2025, the Mitch Daniels School of Business hosted its “Legacies and Leaders” event at the Purdue Memorial Union, honoring distinguished alumni and expressing gratitude to the donors who help advance the school’s mission. The celebration brought together students, alumni, faculty and friends of the Daniels School for an evening of recognition and reflection.
The evening began with remarks from Filippa Rodriguez, a junior majoring in Business Analytics and Information Management, who shared her perspective as a current student. The school’s Dr. Samuel R. Allen Dean Jim Bullard then welcomed attendees and highlighted the importance of leadership, innovation and service to the school’s community.
This year’s Business Leadership Award, the school’s highest honor, was presented to William H. Strong, who earned his BSIM degree from Purdue in 1973. Strong began his career with Price Waterhouse & Co. in Chicago before moving into investment banking. Over the next 40 years, he held senior roles at Salomon Brothers and Morgan Stanley. His work spanned global financial centers — including New York, London and Chicago — before he concluded his full-time career in Hong Kong as co-CEO of Morgan Stanley’s businesses in Asia. In that role, he oversaw roughly 5,000 professionals and served on the firm’s Global Management Committee.
Since retiring in 2019, Strong has remained active in private equity and venture capital. Beyond business, he has made significant contributions to education, the arts and national service, serving on numerous prestigious boards, including the Navy SEAL Foundation and the Hudson Institute.
Receiving the award was a meaningful moment for Strong, who credits Purdue as a foundation for his success and for shaping his personal and professional growth. “To me, it validates my choice to go to Purdue,” he says. “It showed me a bigger world and helped illuminate my path forward.”
Looking back on his career, Strong doesn’t point to a specific accolade but rather meaningful moments — particularly during the 2008 financial crisis when he helped major clients navigate turbulent times. “We came up with unique ideas. That was very fulfilling,” he says.
Strong champions leading by example and building trust. “I wouldn’t ask anybody to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself,” he says, emphasizing his commitment to supporting his team despite the demanding hours of investment banking. He also fostered an open-door policy, encouraging colleagues to share anything with confidence. “I was a free resource, which helped create a workplace built on mutual respect and accountability,” he says.
Reflecting on the award and his return to campus, Strong expresses his gratitude and enthusiasm for engaging with students. “Once I get here, I always learn something,” he says. “I always feel like I get as much out of these visits as they do.”
Rex Gingerich, a 1987 Purdue graduate in business, received the Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurship Award. With more than 40 years of experience in the automotive industry, Gingerich is the founder and CEO of Chariot Automotive Group, a family-owned network of five dealerships in Tipton, Kokomo and Lafayette, Indiana. He began his career working in his family’s dealership while still a student and steadily worked his way up.
He also played a key role in developing the Chariot Automotive Institute, an innovative training program designed to equip the next generation of automotive technicians with the skills needed in today’s fast-changing industry. Through its Automotive Technician Education Pathway, Indiana high school students gain hands-on experience, earn college credits and train with cutting-edge diagnostic tools and advanced repair techniques.
Receiving the award was an unexpected honor for Gingerich. “Thinking about my experience at Purdue and how valuable it was and how much it means to me gives me pause for reflection,” he says. “I certainly wouldn’t have achieved and been able to do the things that I’ve done without my time here,” he says.
Gingerich emphasizes the transformative power of his Purdue education, not just in terms of academics, but in shaping how he approaches life and work. “I learned how to learn and learned the value of learning — and that has never left me,” he says.
Beyond academics, the relationships he built at Purdue have left a lasting impact, helping enrich his time and propel him forward. His time as a student athlete on the Purdue baseball team deepened his connection, adding what he calls “icing on the cake.”
Gingerich is committed to paying forward the opportunities he receives, championing programs that invest in people — especially through education and training. “We have a huge emphasis on education,” he says, highlighting Chariot’s support for employees to pursue continued learning. He takes pride in fostering growth for others, believing in helping people reach the next level. “We make time for them to learn,” he says. “We also pay them to further their education.”
Ted Jackson, who earned his MS in 1998, was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award. Jackson is the president of performance solutions at Novolex, a leading provider of packaging and film solutions. He also serves on the board of Coregistics, a fast-growing contract manufacturing and logistics company.
With a proven track record of scaling operations and leading turnarounds, Jackson has played key roles as a board member, interim manager, investor and consultant for private equity-backed and mid-market companies. Committed to delivering value for employees, customers, investors, and the community, he leverages his expertise and network to drive impactful results.
For Jackson, receiving the award is a full-circle moment — one that reflects his personal philosophy of “learn, earn and return.” Purdue, he says, is the foundation where his educational journey began, shaping his path both professionally and philanthropically.
Jackson credits Purdue not only for its academic rigor and strong foundation in analytical skills and critical thinking, but also for the relationships and mutual respect that come with meeting its challenges. “I’ve formed unexpected but lasting connections with fellow Boilermakers from various disciplines,” he says. “That’s been critical in accelerating my personal and professional growth.”
Of all his accomplishments, Jackson is proudest of giving back to the Dr. Cornell A. Bell Business Opportunity Program (BOP), which was a major factor in his decision to attend Purdue for graduate school. Inspired by the program’s namesake and the stories of BOP alumni, Jackson made it a mission to not only succeed but to help create success for others.
His aim is to be someone future students look to for inspiration — not just for what he’s achieved, but for how he’s chosen to give back. “I want to spark the same spirit of philanthropy in others and give back to BOP and other programs and support systems at Purdue and the Daniels School that enable the next generation of success,” he says.
Tim Newton, director of external relations and communications for the Daniels School and a familiar voice to Purdue sports fans, received the Distinguished Service Award. A 1981 graduate of the College of Liberal Arts, Newton has been the play-by-play broadcaster for Purdue football since 2010 and recently completed his 35th year as the voice of Purdue women’s basketball. He was named Indiana Sportscaster of the Year in 2021 by the National Sports Media Association and has long been a key advocate for Purdue and the Daniels School. In 2024, his alma mater honored him with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Liberal Arts.
Newton expresses gratitude for receiving the award, describing it as a humbling experience. “You don’t expect to get an award for coming in and doing your job every day,” he says. For Newton, the recognition reflects not just personal achievement but collective success. “To me, any individual award is always a shared team award because you don’t have success as an individual if your team doesn’t have success,” he says, emphasizing the supportive network of colleagues throughout his career.
Reflecting on his longstanding relationship with Purdue, Newton notes that the university has shaped nearly his entire professional life. “Purdue has basically been my career,” he says. “It’s taken me literally all over the world.” He first arrived on campus as a 17-year-old and has remained connected to the institution for more than 47 years, including 36 years on staff. Even after retirement from his full-time role, he plans to continue broadcasting for Purdue.
Newton counts the memorable events he’s helped organize and the influential individuals he’s brought back to campus among his proudest accomplishments. “We had sellout crowds at Loeb and brought in people like Tim Russert and Ben Stein,” he recalls. He’s also proud of his work with Purdue’s alumni. “It’s really been gratifying to hear their stories and share what they’ve done and the impact that they’ve had on the world,” he says.
Jennifer M. Liu, a 1998 graduate who serves as vice president of operations for PCI Government Services’ Professional Services sector, received the Distinguished Service Award. Working for the government contracting arm of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, she leads the operations and service delivery for three LLCs and several joint ventures, helping federal agencies streamline and improve services. Her focus on process automation and scaling operations has driven consistent growth and efficiency across the organization.
Liu finds time to volunteer for worthy causes such as Boulder Crest, a nonprofit organization committed to improving the physical, economic, spiritual, and emotional well-being of veterans and their families post-trauma, and Cake4Kids, an organization that bakes and delivers homemade birthday cakes and other treats to at-risk and underserved youth in the Northern Virginia area.
Receiving the service award was a surprise for Liu, who sees helping others as something everyone should do. Volunteering comes naturally to her, and she believes supporting the community should be a shared responsibility. “It is definitely an unexpected honor,” she says. “I don’t feel I deserve an award for service. It’s just something that I do.”
Liu also highlights the impact her Purdue education had on her career. After graduating, she went into project management, where she leaned heavily on the skills she learned in college. “Time management, discipline and communication were all skills I came away with at Purdue,” she said. These abilities helped her move from IT project management to leading a program management office and now to running operations at a company.
Liu’s work with Cake4Kids has also made an impact. “What started as a creative outlet became a way to support children and adults who may not have had a birthday cake before,” she says. “Making and decorating cakes allows me to do something I enjoy while giving someone else a reason to smile.”
Dominique Hanssens, who earned his MSIA from Purdue in 1976 and a PhD in 1977, received the John S. Day Distinguished Alumni Academic Service Award. Hanssens is a Distinguished Research Professor of Marketing at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He has held several key leadership roles at UCLA, including faculty chair, associate dean and marketing area chair. From 2005 to 2007, he served as executive director of the Marketing Science Institute. His research focuses on strategic marketing and measuring marketing productivity, making significant contributions to the academic community.
Hanssens’ teaching excellence has been recognized with multiple awards, including UCLA Anderson’s Neidorf “Decade” Teaching Award, the AMA Churchill Lifetime Achievement Award, and the INFORMS Buck Weaver Award. He is also a founding partner of MarketShare, a leading marketing analytics firm.
Receiving the award is a personal honor for Hanssens, who describes it as “simply wonderful.” The recognition was especially rewarding because it celebrated his academic contributions — an area where he has dedicated his entire career. He emphasized that the award also highlighted the lasting value of his Purdue education. “It is a tribute to my work,” he says, “but it’s also a tribute to Purdue Business School itself because they taught me everything that I needed to have a successful academic career.”
Hanssens specifically credits Purdue’s PhD program for shaping his path in marketing. He recalled that his education was highly analytical and data-driven — exactly what he had hoped for when he chose to study at Purdue. “PhD education is so focused,” he says. “The way marketing is taught here at the PhD level is very analytical, very data focused, very engineering focused. And that’s what I needed.”
Beyond the classroom, he’s most proud of the way data-driven thinking shaped his teaching. “Even when teaching marketing strategy, which is not a quantitative topic, I brought material to the discipline that comes from looking at the data and basing your decisions upon what you see,” he says.
Rounding out the evening’s honors was Chris Comstock, recipient of the Young Alumni Award. Comstock, who graduated in 2006, is a partner at Mayer Brown LLP in Chicago, where he is part of the litigation and dispute resolution team. He handles complex litigation and class actions, manages large e-discovery projects and advocates for clients across trial and appellate courts. His rapid career advancement and legal expertise have earned him recognition as a rising leader in his field.
Comstock is also deeply committed to pro bono service. He has made a significant impact representing immigrants and asylum seekers in legal proceedings, leading a team that secured the country’s first judgments requiring the reunification of Brazilian mothers and their sons separated under the prior family separation policy. He also guided a team that successfully allowed a Mongolian family to remain in the United States.
In addition to his pro bono work, Comstock has handled major corporate litigation, including a complex Ponzi scheme case that stretched over years and demanded relentless effort. The experience reinforced the importance of persistence — a lesson he attributes in part to his Purdue roots. “I’ve used the skills and the lessons I learned at the business school throughout my career,” he says.
For Comstock, a second-generation Boilermaker, receiving the award is a deeply personal and meaningful honor. “My time at Purdue was invaluable in prepping me for my career,” he says. Returning to campus and reconnecting with the university reminded him of how much it helped shape his journey.
Reflecting on his education, Comstock credits Purdue — particularly the business school — with giving him the skills he uses daily in his legal career. He pointed specifically to learning close reading and analysis, along with the confidence he developed through public speaking. “I was probably a little nervous and awkward, but when you’re a lawyer, that’s a big part of what you do,” he says. Those early experiences presenting in class gave him a foundation he now relies on in the courtroom.
The "Legacies and Leaders" celebration not only honored individual achievements but also underscored the school’s enduring mission: to educate and empower leaders who shape industries, serve their communities and uphold the legacy of Purdue University. The honorees’ stories are powerful reminders of what’s possible when excellence, service and ambition come together — and of the strong foundation the Daniels School continues to provide for generations to come.
