The Business of Writing - Lundquist College of Business - University ...

360 dEgrEES
to EUgENE
Returning to Eugene after a four-decade
professional consulting career,
Dan Hollingshead ’69 has come full circle.
dan Hollingshead is back in his hometown. He’s
back scratching an entrepreneurial itch that started at
Willamette High School. And he’s a regular presence
at the University of Oregon, albeit this time he’s
dispensing advice instead of receiving it.
Not that he ever truly left UO. After receiving his
bachelor’s degree in accounting, Hollingshead returned
regularly for Duck football and basketball games. Since
the early 1990s, he’s been a member of the Accounting
Circle and the Business Advisory Council at the
Lundquist College.
P rofI les I n sUCCess
Hollingshead knew early he wanted a business career. Growing up around his parent’s store—his father Don
started Eugene Skin Divers Supply in 1956, and it’s now run by his brother Michael—Hollingshead created
a business teaching scuba diving. “I recognized, even in high school, that studying business gave you a
foundation to do anything,” Hollingshead said. “I knew I wanted to go to business school and get a degree
in accounting, and that’s what I did.”
After graduating, he landed a job in the Eugene office of Coopers & Lybrand. It was the start of what would
become a thirty-seven-year career, all with that firm and its successor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, now the largest
professional services firm in the world. That job took Hollingshead to progressively larger and more challenging
assignments in Portland and Seattle. But friendships he made in Eugene had a way of pulling him back.
One day he was telling Randy Papé, chief executive and president of the Papé Group in Eugene and a friend
for more than thirty years, that he wasn’t ready to retire even though many large auditing firms, including his,
set mandatory retirement at age sixty. Papé happened to be looking for someone with Hollingshead’s skills,
and Hollingshead wanted to lead an entrepreneurial pursuit—either of his own or with the right company.
Now, as chief executive of Papé Trucks and executive vice president of the Papé Group, Hollingshead works to
expand the company’s new Kenworth truck dealership business. He also helps the presidents of the company’s
other operating units grow their businesses.
Living in Eugene additionally affords Hollingshead an opportunity to ramp up his involvement with the
university. In addition to his roles with the Lundquist College, he has served as a trustee of the University of
Oregon Foundation since 1999 and will assume the chairmanship in 2009. At the foundation, Hollingshead has
a reputation for being a thoughtful leader, said Karen Kreft, the executive director.
His commitment is a way of giving back to the school that provided the foundation for his career. “The
university, and in particular the business school, is so critical to the success—not only of our students, but the
success of our economy and the university,” Hollingshead said. “If I can play a role in helping enhance that
success, it makes me feel good.”
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