Dr. W. Earl Walker is Founding Dean and Professor Emeritus at The Citadel School of Business. He retired in 2014 as Professor or Management and Leadership. In 2018, he founded The Citadel Distinguished Scholars Program. He also was COO of the Business School Mentors Association. He retired in July 2007 as the Founding Dean of the Citadel School of Business Administration. During his tenure, he and the faculty developed a new mission and vision for the School of Business Administration, created a 28-person Advisory Board, and started the 146-person Citadel Mentors Association, a Leadership Forum, the Citadel Business Hall of Fame, completely reorganized the School, raised over four million dollars for the School, and formed partnerships with organizations in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. He has also served as the President of The Rotary Club of Charleston and on the Boards of many organizations in the Lowcountry to include the Charleston Regional Alliance, Charleston Breast Center, Free Enterprise Foundation, Lowcountry Chapter of the American Red Cross, and Harbour Club. Previously he served as Dean and Professor of the Helzberg School of Management at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri and Dean and Professor of Management in the School of Business at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. In these positions he led business schools that redesigned themselves to include new mission and vision statements and initiated such new initiatives as an Information Technology Leadership Program, MBAs in Health Care and Electronic Commerce Management, and a Center for Leadership.
Previously he was Director of Training at McLane Company in Temple, Texas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wal-Mart. In that position, he started the McLane Leadership School and established company-wide management training initiatives for this $6- billion-dollar company. He was also Professor of Public Policy, Program Director, and Division Chair in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point for 18 years. In addition, he was a line Army officer who commanded armor units in Vietnam, Germany, and the United States and was airborne and ranger qualified. He retired in 1993 as an Army Colonel after 26 years of service.
He was a 1967 Distinguished Graduate (summa cum laude) and Phi Kappa Phi from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and has a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has received a number of distinctive awards to include selection as a White House Fellow and a NATO Research Fellow. He was elected by former Fellows as President of the White House Fellows Association and Chairman of the Board of the White House Fellows Foundation. He has won research grants from the Ford Foundation, the Army Research Institute, the Supreme Commander of all NATO forces, the Comptroller General of the United States, the National Guard Bureau, and the National War College. Also, he is the author of three books and over 25 articles on leadership, organizations, defense policy making, the presidency, and Congress. His books are based on extensive interview research including auditors at the General Accounting Office and foreign government and military leaders in Europe. His books are: Changing Organizational Culture: Strategy, Structure and Professionalism in the US General Accounting Office; Reserve Forces and the British Territorial Army: A Case Study for NATO in the 1990s; and National Security and the US Constitution.
As an Army officer, he graduated with distinction from every level of military schooling through the National War College; he is also a graduate of the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College. He is certified as a master trainer by Zenger-Miller and is a graduate of the Wal-Mart Walton Institute. He has attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Management Development Program and the Center for Creative Leadership’s Leader Development Program. Finally, he has actively served four Episcopal congregations since he joined the Church in 1982 as a senior warden, vestry member, lay duties coordinator, lay reader, and chalice bearer.
Earl has been married to Susan Porter Walker for over 50 years, and they have two children, Allen and Kathryn. Susan has a Master’s Degree in Library Science and has served as an archivist, medical librarian, and a children’s librarian. She is a Master Gardener, docent at the Edmondston Alston House in Charleston, was a docent at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and at the San Antonio Museum of Art and a tour guide for West Point Tours. Her father was an Army General, and she has lived all over the world. Allen is a Regular Army Colonel, airborne and ranger qualified, commanded an Army signal battalion, has commanded an airborne signal company, and is assigned in Washington, DC. He is also a graduate in computer science from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey and has a Master’s Degree from the Air Command and General Staff College. He has had tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ghana. Kathryn is an attorney. She graduated with an International Baccalaureate degree from Shawnee Mission East High School in Overland Park, Kansas, the College of William and Mary with honors in business administration and information technology systems, and is a cum laude graduate of Michigan School of Law. She has also served as a law clerk at a federal appeals court in Washington, DC. Before attending law school, she worked with a consulting firm in Washington, DC. She currently is a staff counsel at Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan. The Walkers are part owners of a family farm north of Charlottesville, Virginia.