James F. Brinkerhoff

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 the 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

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, to elect and 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 today, Brinkerhoff mentioned first “the obvious problem of morale in the faculty and staff. Trying to achieve 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 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, whereas 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 concern 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 to 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