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Can you provide us with some information about your background? Your education and career?
Steve: I received my Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 1967. Sheila and I were married the week after graduation and moved to Houston where I began my career at Shell Oil Company. I served as managing director of the Royal Dutch Shell Group leaving that post in 1999, and served as president and CEO of Shell Oil Company from 1999 to my retirement in 2002. I currently serve as chairman and president of SLM Discovery Ventures, Inc., a company formed in 2002, pursuing commercial ventures in support of volunteerism, social outreach, and higher academic achievement. Efforts focus on enabling sustainable transformation in not for profit organizations.
Sheila: I graduated in 1967, as well, with my Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and when Steve and I arrived in Houston I taught second grade students. As a result of Steve’s career we moved quite a bit, and while I was unable to continue teaching, I found my degree from the University of Illinois to be invaluable in guiding my own children through the different schools, districts and systems they attended both in the United States and internationally.
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Tell us how you have kept connected to the University of Illinois since your time as a student?
Steve: Honestly, in the early years after graduation there wasn’t a lot of connection between us and the University of Illinois. I spent 30% of my career overseas, and our University of Illinois relationship consisted mostly of annual giving mailings and our annual gifts. That connection became deeper when we returned to the states in 1999, and it was at that time that I began working with the University of Illinois Foundation. I jokingly say that Sid Micek [UIF President and CEO at time] met our plane when it landed from London. Also, my fraternity, the Triangle Fraternity, “found me” after my being lost, but I told them I knew where I was the whole time. So, the Foundation was my entry point back to reconnect with our alma mater, and that is what provided me with opportunities to reconnect with chemical engineering and Chip Zukoski who was department head at that time.
Sheila: That became the entry point for me as well, and opened up the door for me to reconnect with the College of Education.
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You recently received the William Winter Award for your support as volunteers and philanthropic leaders. Can you explain what compelled you to remain so connected to your alma mater, and what you hope your philanthropy accomplishes for the University?
Steve: When speaking at that award’s presentation I used the analogy of the metamorphosis chair – a chair that, with the right combination of maneuvering, transforms from an ordinary chair into a library step ladder. The undergraduate years are years of transformation and surprise developments. When I think about where my journey has taken me, it was largely set up by my undergraduate experiences. There are traces of what I do today that find their roots back at Illinois. You plant seeds that you don’t even realize are there until they start to take root later, sometimes years later. Those four years are a transformational journey, and that’s what I want to support with our time and philanthropy.
Sheila: Our opportunities were made possible by those who went before us, and we want to do that for future students. We are grateful for how we were transformed in those years and we want to pass that possibility along to future students. You want their lives to be transformed as yours was.
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What advice can you share about how to make a lasting impact at the University of Illinois?
Sheila: Do something. Take the first step. Make connections. Attend an event. Make a gift. Be grateful.
Steve: And if you do that, you will make an impact. Your impact will be far greater than you ever really know; transforming lives of those who you will never know.
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What is your favorite University of Illinois memory?
Sheila: I have two. The first one happened before I was a college student. I made my first trip to the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as a high school freshman visiting from Chicago where I grew up. I was 14 years old. I remember walking across the quad, and knowing that I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself. It inspired me to want to work hard in school, and to come back to the University as a student. I still get that feeling when I walk there today. The second is a combination of memories made with Steve. I have so many wonderful memories with Steve; so many transformational experiences that happened for both of us there.
Steve: I remember how supportive the faculty was without hand-holding. They helped you learn and grow all the while teaching resiliency, a strength I find to be as important as learning a specific discipline.
And most importantly, I met Sheila at the University of Illinois, building a Homecoming float together. That is my fondest memory, and it put us on path of a truly transformational journey that has lasted over 50 years
