Leading a "Second Life" in Service to Country

For the past 18 years, Steve Ferris has had – in a very real sense – two professional lives. His primary role has been as a finance professor. His excellence and productivity in this role earned him the honor of being the Rogers Chair of Money, Credit and Banking. In addition, he has served in the U.S. Navy Reserve. His effectiveness in this role resulted in a series of promotions, all the way up to the rank of Commander.

As a Navy logistics officer, Ferris attributes the same principles of risk management, project prioritization of workflow and inventory management that he uses in teaching his business classes at MU to the way his logistics unit helps assists operations in Iraq.

Because of his “second professional life,” Ferris now has the distinction of being MU’s only tenured faculty member to be deployed to the Middle East as a result of the war in Iraq. He is currently deployed as chief of staff for a 1,000-person logistics unit at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

Ferris explains his job as a Navy logistics officer as handling all the equipment and supplies going into and out of Iraq through Kuwait. According to Ferris, he is able to put some of his academic training to use during his active duty with the Navy. He says that the same principles of risk management, project prioritization of workflow, and inventory management that he teaches in his business classes at MU are used by his logistics unit to assist operations in Iraq. “It’s classic issues of logistics that any modern business must address.”

After being called up from the reserves, Ferris left for two months of training in late February 2007. On May 3, Ferris arrived at Camp Arifjan, a large U.S. Army base close to Kuwait City. With summertime highs that reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit, Ferris describes Iraq as “very different from Columbia and life at the university. It has certainly made me appreciate the comforts and freedoms of normal life a whole lot more.”

Ferris received a doctorate in finance from the University of Pittsburgh. He always felt a strong desire to expand and broaden his knowledge base. Thus, as part of his service in the U.S. Navy Reserve, he earned a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College in July 2005. The rigorous curriculum included online courses as well as courses that were taken at the historic Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania.

“No learning, whatever it is, is wasted,” Ferris states. “You just need to find creative ways of using it.” Indeed, he is already planning a workshop based upon his U.S. Navy Reserve experience, including his deployment to Kuwait. Ferris intends to offer the workshop after he returns to MU in December.

Ferris’ return is much anticipated, according to Bruce Walker, dean of the College of Business. “We very much admire what Steve is doing in service to our country,” Walker says. “However, we miss him greatly – both as a colleague and a friend. We look forward to his safe return to his family and to his role as a finance faculty member and director of the college’s Financial Research Institute.”