James Elliott Goulka – 50th Reunion Essay

James Elliott Goulka

3430 N Mountain Ridge, #31

Mesa AZ 85207

j.e.goulka@gmail.com

602-463-0844

Spouse(s): Ann Lyman (neé Bachelder) Goulka (1969)

Child(ren): Jeremiah Elliott Goulka (1975); Sarah Ann Goulka Perkins (1980)

Grandchild(ren): Amelia Ann Perkins (2011), Madeleine Louise Perkins (2013), Fiona Wilner Goulka (2013), Jacob Albert Perkins (2015), Elliott Wilner Goulka (2017)

Education: Yale School of Management, MBA ‘78

Career: Executive Director & CEO, Arizona Tech Investors (Phoenix), 8 years; President & CEO, National Technology Transfer Center (Wheeling, WV), 2 years; President & CEO, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation (Scottsdale, AZ), 2 years; President & CEO, NetSelector (Minneapolis), 2 years; COO/CFO, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago), 4 years; Private Equity & Corporate Finance Banker, Citibank (Chicago), 6 years.

College: Davenport

Yale gave me the five core tenets of how I have lived my life for the last fifty years.

Though I am not sure Kingman Brewster actually said it at our freshman convocation in Woolsey on our first (rainy) day at Yale, I heard and internalized the phrase, “excellence is expected.” During our years at Yale, we expected it from each other and from our teachers and they from us. Of course, then, as during the subsequent fifty years, I didn’t always accomplish what I set out to do, but this notion of accepting challenges and applying intensity, will, and focus, and expecting it from others, has informed everything that I’ve done.

The origin may have been the blue course catalogue: Yale opened my mind to multitudes of ideas and experiences to learn. I wanted to experience them all. I started out as a biochemistry major. Vincent Scully opened my eyes to western art. I read Chinese literature in translation and studied visual and kinetic art from West Africa. The arc of my life after Yale has followed this notion: experience different subjects, roles, sectors, and domains.

Though the politics and culture of the times were tumultuous, I believed that Yale was steadfast in its commitment to the discovery of the truth and the application of reason. Those commitments acknowledged that there was no simple, conclusive path to truth; that the prisms of different experiences, histories, and perspectives need to be part of that exploration, regardless of the momentary tribal or fashionable pressures that attempt to channel thinking toward approved positions.

While the life of the mind is often solitary, it’s not always so, and the conversion of new insights and ideas into actions requires the collaboration of a community of people. I have been very fortunate. I met the love of my life while we were sophomores (she at Vassar); we celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary three months after the reunion. I have friendships that began at Yale that continue to sustain me. My Yale friends are a disparate lot, but each, in his own way, still teaches me. I cherish each one. Learning that “dependency” on others has enabled me to build effective teams in startups and large enterprises, in non-profits, education, and politics.

And, finally, while excellence may be expected, achievement is more uncertain. Well-structured scientific experiments fail to deliver useful results. Elections are lost to inferior opponents. The best person or product doesn’t always win. Unfavorable market conditions overwhelm. Stuff happens. Nonetheless, the lesson learned at Yale is that the expectation of excellent performance remains.