Current Issue - Thunderbird Magazine - Thunderbird School of ...

Sent away as a child to live with strangers,
a refugee returns to fi ght the Nazis,
then fi nds a new home at Thunderbird
Viennese children arrive in London on the Kindertransport. ©AUSTRIAN NATIONAL
LIBRARY (Repressed Years: The Austrian Railways and National Socialism Between
1938-1945, Exhibition)
beyond the
RTRANSPORT
By Frederick Koppl ’52
Left, Fred Koppl ’52
attends the Thunderbird
alumni reunion May 24,
2012, in Berlin, Germany.
(DARYL JAMES)
Most people come to Thunderbird to study global business.
Not me. I came in 1950 because campus photographs
showed two swimming pools in a desert oasis.
As a young Polish immigrant and World War II veteran
selling electrical testing equipment in frigid Illinois
and neighboring states, the promise of year-round sunshine appealed
to me.
I first read about Thunderbird in a lobby magazine while waiting
for a client on a sales call. The article showed images of pristine swimming
pools surrounded by palm trees and grass, which looked more
like a country club to me than an institute for international trade.
thunderbird magazine 37