Alumni provide $1 million gift to School of Business

John J. Oros, a 1971 graduate of the School of Business, and Anne Wackman Oros, who attended the School of Social Work, have given $1 million to the university’s School of Business.

Their gift names two areas of the Fluno Center: the John J. and Anne W. Oros Dining Room and the Kenneth B. Wackman Courtyard. The gift also establishes the John J. Oros MBA Speaker Series in the school.

A dinner and reception to be held Thursday, Oct. 21, at the Fluno Center will honor the couple’s gift and dedicate the named spaces.

“The gift for the MBA speaker series will help ensure that our MBA students have abundant opportunities to interact with successful business leaders from many different areas,” says Business School Dean Michael Knetter. “The gift for the courtyard and dining room at the Fluno Center shows a sensitivity and response to the needs of the school that has marked this family’s relationship with the university.”

John J. Oros was named executive vice president of the Enstar Group in 2000 and president and chief operating officer in 2001. Before joining that company, he was a general partner with Goldman, Sachs & Co in New York City. He is on the UW Foundation Board of Directors, has served on the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) Board and has been a member of the School of Business Dean’s Advisory Board.

Anne Wackman Oros for the past decade has worked with the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services, caring for 19 foster babies, infants often born with some degree of drug exposure. She also works with Children’s Aid and Family Services of northern New Jersey to support and mentor parents.

Kenneth B. Wackman, Anne’s late father, graduated from UW–Madison in 1935 with a degree in accounting. He served on the boards of directors for the WAA, UW Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. He spent much of his accounting career with Alexander Grant and was vice chairman of Talcott National at the time of his death in 1974.

“Anne’s dad was involved with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and he was on the board of directors at the UW Foundation when Anne and I were in school,” John Oros says. “So I had these good associations with campus and with the foundation, thanks to him.

“Anne and I were married in 1973, and he died in 1974, a time when he was still incredibly active, in his mid-60s,” Oros says. “That was a time, I think, when the UW Foundation was really coming into its own, with some of the leading industrialists in the country who just happened to be UW alumni stepping forward to help the university.

“So I was truly flattered when I was invited onto the UW Foundation Board,” he says. “When I was nearing the end of my 20-year career with Goldman Sachs, I told [UW Foundation President] Sandy Wilcox and [Create the Future: The Wisconsin Campaign Co-Chair] Paul Collins that when we had the opportunity and the liquidity, we’d like to make a major gift.”

He adds that he discussed the John J. Oros MBA Speaker Series with Knetter. “We agreed that it would be great if we could bring some of the world’s leading business executives to Madison to talk with business school majors and have them interact and be a kind of mentor to the students,” John Oros says. “The UW hasn’t had the money or the staff on hand to ask these people to campus. One thing I’ve found — if you ask the CEOs of America’s leading companies to come to speak at a great university like Wisconsin, they usually will do it. I was happy to give the seed capital to help get it started.”

In addition to giving the students access to real-world experiences, the Oros MBA Speaker Series can “help get UW–Madison on the map for some of these firms,” Oros notes. “If the chairman of GE, Ford Motor Co. or PepsiCo were to come to campus, you can be sure the recruiters will pay attention to that, and it might open some doors. So not only do they get firsthand experience, but it also has the residual benefit of raising the school’s profile.”

As for naming the spaces at the Fluno Center, John Oros says, “Having the names of our two families represented was immensely appealing to us. Ken [Wackman] was just an inspirational guy, so this made perfect sense.