Robert W. Galvin, chairman of the executive committee of Motorola Inc., a leading firm in paging and cellular telephone technologies, will present the next Sheffield Fellowship address at Yale University. His talk, titled “Is there leadership without legacy?” will be presented Monday, April 20, at 4:30 p.m. in Sudler Auditorium of William Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St.
Free and open to the public, the talk will be followed by a reception at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. D. Allan Bromley, Dean of the Yale Faculty of Engineering, is sponsor of the fellowship program.
Galvin started his career at Motorola in 1940. He held the senior officer position in the company from 1959 until 1990, when he became chairman of the executive committee. He continues to serve as a full-time officer of Motorola. Galvin’s many honors have included a number of honorary degrees, election to the National Business Hall of Fame and the prestigious National Medal of Technology in 1991.
Galvin guided Motorola’s transformation from a consumer electronics company with $290 million in sales in 1959 to a global leader in commercial and industrial electronics with 1992 sales of $13.3 billion. Under his guidance, Motorola has developed semiconductor technology for application in computer-controlled, two-way radio communication for public safety, national defense and the exploration of space.
He has spearheaded Motorola’s program to improve quality and achieve total customer satisfaction. As a result, Motorola was a winner of the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988. In addition, his forceful advocacy of free enterprise was recognized when he was appointed chairman of the President’s Advisory Council on Private Sector Initiatives.
Recognizing that people are a company’s most important resource, Motorola today invests more than $100 million a year in training. This major commitment to continuing education is the only way to develop the technological manpower that America needs to compete successfully, according to Galvin, who has started many other innovative human resources programs.
A past president of the Electronic Industries Association, he has led efforts to promote fair trade and build solid relationships between the U.S. electronics industry and national governments. Under his leadership, Motorola was one of the first companies to penetrate the Japanese telecommunications market. Under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Galvin was chairman of the Industry Policy Advisory Committee to the U.S. Special Representative for Trade Negotiations. He is chairman of Sematech, an industry-government research consortium, and former chairman of the board of overseers of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Born in Marsfield, Wis., Galvin attended the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, and holds honorary degrees from the University of Arizona, DePaul University, Quincy College (Illinois), St. Ambrose College (Davenport, Iowa), St. Xavier College (Chicago), and Arizona State University. He received the Sword of Loyola Award from Loyola University in Chicago.
In 1970, the Electronics Industries Association awarded him its Medal of Honor for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of the electronics industry. He received the Golden Omega Award for outstanding achievement and leadership in the electronics industry from the National Electrical Manufacturers Association and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The Automotive Hall of Fame selected him as the 1988 Industry Leader of the Year. He also received the Medal of Achievement from the American Electronics Association in 1988.
The Sheffield Fellowship was established in 1996 to honor the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. Founded in 1852 to train engineers, the school produced some of the greatest inventors and industrial leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries before it was absorbed into the growing Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences in the mid-1940s.
The Sheffield Fellowship brings to Yale leaders and innovators in business, industry and government. In addition to presenting a lecture, fellows tour laboratories and classrooms and meet with faculty and students. Informal discussions with members of student organizations provide career perspectives in engineering and related fields.
