10/07/2024

Robert H. Brockhaus, Ph.D. professor emeritus in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business at Saint Louis University, died Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. He was 84.

Brockhaus was a trailblazer in the academic field of business entrepreneurship. He joined the University in 1973 and began teaching entrepreneurship for the first time in 1974, making SLU one of the first 20 schools in the world to teach the subject. He founded what was first known as the Jefferson Smurfit Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (now the Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship) at Saint Louis University in 1987.

“Bob called me on my first day at SLU (in 2021) to let me know he was here for me if the need arose,” said Lewis Sheats, director of the Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship. “His kindness to me and his devotion to SLU and his students was remarkable.” 

Brockhaus was born on April 18, 1940, in St. Louis. He graduated from Lindbergh High School in 1958 and earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla in 1962, a M.S.  in Industrial Administration from Purdue University in 1966, and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis in 1976.

“Bob’s doctoral dissertation at Washington University had an unusual impact,” said Jerome Katz, Ph.D., the Robert H. Brockhaus Chair in Entrepreneurship and a professor of management at SLU. “Where economists long argued that entrepreneurs are the great risk-takers in the economy, Bob interviewed local entrepreneurs and found they almost universally only took risks they could manage. The academic paper from his dissertation (“The Risk-Taking Propensity of Entrepreneurs”, Academy of Management Journal, 1980) cemented his reputation as a leading entrepreneurship researcher from the start.”

Today that paper has 3,624 citations. 

The entrepreneurship program and center received multiple awards under his leadership. Brockhaus took on leadership positions in major professional organizations for entrepreneurship academics, including the International Council for Small Business, the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneurship Interest Group (later Division) of the Academy of Management, and the Small Business Institute Directors Association. He served as the founder and director of the Missouri Small Business Development Centers, helping Missouri businesses thrive.

“Bob was truly a pioneer with a small group of fellow academics creating a new, research-driven approach to understanding entrepreneurs and the process of entrepreneurship with an eye toward helping to create a new American economy grounded in new technologies, new markets, new types of people as entrepreneurs and new ways to create and deliver value to societies and economies,” Katz said. “Bob and his colleagues’ efforts fed into the entrepreneurial 80s as President Reagan in the U.S. and the UK’s Margaret Thatcher made entrepreneurship the hallmark of their economic policies.”

Brockhaus and several of his colleagues were appointed delegates to the White House Conferences on Small Business in 1986 and 1995. He also served as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, as the Schoen Visiting Professor of Private Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Baylor University, as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Southern Cross University in Australia, and as the Extraordinary Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Potchestroom University in South Africa.

The model of entrepreneurship education developed by Brockhaus and Katz has been the subject of multiple journal articles and pedagogical awards and remains the bedrock of the University’s entrepreneurship education efforts. He is the author of “Frontiers of Entrepreneurial Research” and “Entrepreneurship Education” and the co-author with Katz of “Databases for the Study of Entrepreneurship” and “Advances in Entrepreneurship.” 

In 2003, Brockhaus was honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration as its inaugural national Entrepreneurship Research Advocate. He retired from SLU in 2004.

“He continued to blaze new academic trails, becoming one of the first entrepreneurship researchers to develop the emerging field of family business studies, in which he and wife Joyce Brockhaus published three papers together,” Katz said. “Even in retirement, Bob continued to write.”

Saint Louis University established the Robert H. Brockhaus Chair in Entrepreneurship in 2019 in recognition of his contributions to the University. Katz is the first person to hold the chair named for his long-time colleague.

He served four terms as an alderman in Sunset Hills.

Brockhaus was named Citizen of the Year in both Sunset Hills and Crestwood and received the Lindbergh High School Distinguished Alumnus Award and the Lindbergh Leader Award from the school district. He was also honored with the Boy Scouts of America District Service Award and received the R.V. Wolf Alumni Service Award and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Missouri S&T.

Brockhaus is survived by his wife Joyce Brockhaus; children Robert H Brockhaus, Jr. and Lynn Vartanian; and four grandchildren.

Visitation will be held from 4-8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 11, at Kutis Funeral Home on Gravois. A funeral service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 12, at St. Lucas United Church of Christ 11735 Denny Road, St. Louis 63136. Burial to follow at Sunset Cemetery; followed by luncheon at 1 p.m. at Friendship Village.