At Portocheli, Peloponnese, Greece
William Richard Pendergast was born May 10, 1944 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, where his father Thomas M Pendergast worked as assistant to Father Flanagan at Boy’s Town. His mother Virginia Rose Corcoran was a social worker. William had an older brother Thomas M. Pendergast, Jr. (b. 1942) and later a younger sister, now Linda Rose Levine (b. 1945). The family moved to Chicago shortly afterwards and lived in an apartment on the North side not far from Virginia’s parents, William and Cecelia Corcoran. Later, they moved nearby to a single-family home on Granville Avenue.
When William reached fourth grade in 1954, the family moved north to the village of Wilmette on Lake Michigan. At the time, William’s father worked as Executive Director and then Executive Vice President of Junior Achievement. During the Wilmette years, William attended St. Francis Xavier school and then Loyola Academy. He participated in sports (football) and followed a rigorous physical training routine in his home basement gym. Upon discovering talent for drawing and painting, he participated in lessons at private art school and at the Art Institute of Chicago. He passed many evenings and weekends as an a participant in the local franchise of Junior Achievement, designing, making and selling products. Honing an entrepreneurial spirit, he spent summers working an eclectic variety of jobs like delivering Coca-Cola to bars along Rush Street in Chicago, distributing orange juice drinks throughout the near north area, and flowers in Wilmette. He worked as a reservation clerk for a railroad in Chicago, a janitor at a local high school, a paint store salesman, a shelf-stocker at a local supermarket, as a caddy at the local golf club where actor Bill Murray learned the ropes for his movie “Caddyshack,” and in the Chicago offices of a women’s lingerie firm. He spent snowy Christmas vacations delivering Christmas cards for the Wilmette Post Office.
After graduating high school, William attended the University of Notre Dame in the footsteps of his brother, father, and three uncles. He began studies in economics at ND and set sail on the SS United States for his junior year in Paris at the Institute of European Studies (IES). During that transformative year, which you can read about here, he changed to a double major in Philosophy and French and formed a relationship with Carol Stamatis, a fellow student at IES from New York who studied Art History at the École du Louvre. After this heady experience, he returned to Notre Dame for his final year, graduating magna cum laude, and determined to leverage his international interests by graduate training in International Relations.
William attended the School for International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University in New York. Carol graduated from Dickinson College to study Art History in Yale University’s PhD program. A mere 2-hour trip from New York facilitated fraternization. William received a Herbert H. Lehman fellowship at Columbia with full funding for 4 years of graduate education. He also participated in Columbia’s prestigious interdisciplinary International Fellows Program (IFP), leading to a 1967 summer internship in the Executive Office of the President adjacent to the White House in Washington D.C. There, he parked his red Vespa motor scooter amid the sober pool of black government limousines. He and Carol married in June 1968, followed by a summer camping trip through Europe. Based on his 4-year funding runway at Columbia, William followed his MA and Certificate in European Studies at SIPA with a transfer to the PhD program in International Relations. After a year’s research in Paris during 1969, he completed his doctorate on French Foreign Policy in UNESCO in 1971 while living in New Haven.
William and Carol spent many following years living in Europe. After a year teaching at the University of New Hampshire, they moved to Heidelberg where William worked as a professor and eventually Academic Director with Boston University’s Overseas Programs that offered graduate degree studies for the US military. Carol completed her doctoral dissertation at Yale and taught in Europe at the University of Maryland, Heidelberg College, and Pepperdine University. In 1980, they moved to Brussels where William became Boston University’s Director of its graduate business degree program and Carol formulated a master’s degree program in Art History. During these years, they gave birth to 3 children: Jennifer, (Berlin 1976), Sarah (Heidelberg 1978), and Matthew (Brussels 1982). In 1984, they returned to the US where William became Associate Dean at Boston University’s Metropolitan College and Carol taught at the University of Lowell.
In 1991, William joined the University of Pittsburgh as Dean of its new Czechoslovak Management Center (CMC) in Prague. This first western graduate business program in Central Europe was founded by a coalition of universities and national foreign assistance programs like USAID to foster the transition from communism to a market economy. It offered an MBA program, short executive courses, and an entrepreneurship center. Carol worked with CMC’s faculty and staff on their training and development. In 1994, William became business Dean at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in California. He and Carol established the family in the nearby town of Carmel. William secured private funding to create the Fisher Graduate School of International Business at MIIS and set it on the road to AACSB accreditation. Carol worked in the Provost’s office at the CSU-Monterey Bay and then as Executive Director at Carmel’s Harrison Library. In 2000, William accepted the Deanship of the business school at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He landed historic funding from Kinko founder Paul Orfaela to name the Orfalea School of Business and taught as a professor of International Business and Cross-Cultural Management. In 2012, they returned to their Carmel home and William took partial retirement teaching half-time at Cal Poly until the end of 2018.
William entered full retirement in 2019 as the Covid pandemic swept the globe. In 2020, William busied himself writing his memoir “On the World’s Stage.” He followed that by designing, writing and publishing this online website that celebrates the musical tradition of French “chanson:” https://mychansonfrancaise.com. Two years later, he launched a second website on travel titled https://www.painperdutravel.com. By then, William and Carol were grandparents of two lovely girls, Tessa Elisabeth Roos (b. 2009) and Kaliana Mitra Kaya Rose Pendergast (b. 2015). They pursue grandparently duties and personal avocations like cooking, wine, travel, writing, and song.
When William reached fourth grade in 1954, the family moved north to the village of Wilmette on Lake Michigan. At the time, William’s father worked as Executive Director and then Executive Vice President of Junior Achievement. During the Wilmette years, William attended St. Francis Xavier school and then Loyola Academy. He participated in sports (football) and followed a rigorous physical training routine in his home basement gym. Upon discovering talent for drawing and painting, he participated in lessons at private art school and at the Art Institute of Chicago. He passed many evenings and weekends as an a participant in the local franchise of Junior Achievement, designing, making and selling products. Honing an entrepreneurial spirit, he spent summers working an eclectic variety of jobs like delivering Coca-Cola to bars along Rush Street in Chicago, distributing orange juice drinks throughout the near north area, and flowers in Wilmette. He worked as a reservation clerk for a railroad in Chicago, a janitor at a local high school, a paint store salesman, a shelf-stocker at a local supermarket, as a caddy at the local golf club where actor Bill Murray learned the ropes for his movie “Caddyshack,” and in the Chicago offices of a women’s lingerie firm. He spent snowy Christmas vacations delivering Christmas cards for the Wilmette Post Office.
After graduating high school, William attended the University of Notre Dame in the footsteps of his brother, father, and three uncles. He began studies in economics at ND and set sail on the SS United States for his junior year in Paris at the Institute of European Studies (IES). During that transformative year, which you can read about here, he changed to a double major in Philosophy and French and formed a relationship with Carol Stamatis, a fellow student at IES from New York who studied Art History at the École du Louvre. After this heady experience, he returned to Notre Dame for his final year, graduating magna cum laude, and determined to leverage his international interests by graduate training in International Relations.
William attended the School for International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University in New York. Carol graduated from Dickinson College to study Art History in Yale University’s PhD program. A mere 2-hour trip from New York facilitated fraternization. William received a Herbert H. Lehman fellowship at Columbia with full funding for 4 years of graduate education. He also participated in Columbia’s prestigious interdisciplinary International Fellows Program (IFP), leading to a 1967 summer internship in the Executive Office of the President adjacent to the White House in Washington D.C. There, he parked his red Vespa motor scooter amid the sober pool of black government limousines. He and Carol married in June 1968, followed by a summer camping trip through Europe. Based on his 4-year funding runway at Columbia, William followed his MA and Certificate in European Studies at SIPA with a transfer to the PhD program in International Relations. After a year’s research in Paris during 1969, he completed his doctorate on French Foreign Policy in UNESCO in 1971 while living in New Haven.
William and Carol spent many following years living in Europe. After a year teaching at the University of New Hampshire, they moved to Heidelberg where William worked as a professor and eventually Academic Director with Boston University’s Overseas Programs that offered graduate degree studies for the US military. Carol completed her doctoral dissertation at Yale and taught in Europe at the University of Maryland, Heidelberg College, and Pepperdine University. In 1980, they moved to Brussels where William became Boston University’s Director of its graduate business degree program and Carol formulated a master’s degree program in Art History. During these years, they gave birth to 3 children: Jennifer, (Berlin 1976), Sarah (Heidelberg 1978), and Matthew (Brussels 1982). In 1984, they returned to the US where William became Associate Dean at Boston University’s Metropolitan College and Carol taught at the University of Lowell.
In 1991, William joined the University of Pittsburgh as Dean of its new Czechoslovak Management Center (CMC) in Prague. This first western graduate business program in Central Europe was founded by a coalition of universities and national foreign assistance programs like USAID to foster the transition from communism to a market economy. It offered an MBA program, short executive courses, and an entrepreneurship center. Carol worked with CMC’s faculty and staff on their training and development. In 1994, William became business Dean at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in California. He and Carol established the family in the nearby town of Carmel. William secured private funding to create the Fisher Graduate School of International Business at MIIS and set it on the road to AACSB accreditation. Carol worked in the Provost’s office at the CSU-Monterey Bay and then as Executive Director at Carmel’s Harrison Library. In 2000, William accepted the Deanship of the business school at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He landed historic funding from Kinko founder Paul Orfaela to name the Orfalea School of Business and taught as a professor of International Business and Cross-Cultural Management. In 2012, they returned to their Carmel home and William took partial retirement teaching half-time at Cal Poly until the end of 2018.
William entered full retirement in 2019 as the Covid pandemic swept the globe. In 2020, William busied himself writing his memoir “On the World’s Stage.” He followed that by designing, writing and publishing this online website that celebrates the musical tradition of French “chanson:” https://mychansonfrancaise.com. Two years later, he launched a second website on travel titled https://www.painperdutravel.com. By then, William and Carol were grandparents of two lovely girls, Tessa Elisabeth Roos (b. 2009) and Kaliana Mitra Kaya Rose Pendergast (b. 2015). They pursue grandparently duties and personal avocations like cooking, wine, travel, writing, and song.
The Family Home in Carmel