Dr. William Huizingh

1919 - 2016

Dr. William Huizingh
A man of many interests and accomplishments including those as a businessman, educator, and philanthropist has died. He was born January 6, 1919 and died March 18, 2016 at the age of 97.

He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Edith, the love of his life, who died in 2007. He had no children.

Dr. Huizingh was the third and longest-surviving of seven sons born to John and Gertrude (Steenwyk) Huizingh in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His father, who came at age 13 from the Netherlands, was plant supervisor at a furniture manufacturing company, the Huizingh Bros. Furniture Company, founded in 1928.

Educated at Christian schools through high school--"an excellent education with committed teachers"--he spent two and a half years at Calvin College in Grand Rapids but walked away from the conservative Calvinist school "fed up with regurgitating everything from their angle. I was a free thinker," he said.

He was a stringer for the Grand Rapids Press when he was 16, and went to work as a supervisor at an auto-parts factory in 1938 when he was 19 years old, earning 40 cents an hour; later he worked in an upholstery factory at 60 cents an hour and, even later, at his family retail furniture store.

When World War II came along, he was drafted into the Army Air Corps, and served 27 months in the Mediterranean Theatre war zone as a cryptologist. He earned seven battle stars, the Bronze Star, and a Unit Citation with Oak Leaf Cluster.

In 1945 when he left the military, he settled in Denver where an uncle was a partner in a Michigan-based furniture factory. The uncle was dying of cancer and Mr. Huizingh stayed on to help his widow. Almost immediately he established his own furniture manufacturing business focused on the upper end upholstery market. "There was a pent up demand to buy furniture after the war; the problem was getting raw materials and supplies," he said. The company was profitable from the beginning.

While building a successful career in manufacturing, Mr. Huizingh married his first wife Vera in 1948, and in 1949 started school at the University of Denver on the GI Bill, "one of the greatest things this country has ever come up with." It paid for his tuition, books, fees, and even offered financial help to GIs who needed help. It also launched him on his second and successful career, in education.

He completed his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, finishing an accounting degree while running his business in the daytime and taking courses at night. He went on to complete a Master's degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting in 1954. "It was the business that drove me to education," he said.

But Bill, ever entrepreneurial, "moves on from things when I'm done." In 1954 when he was "making good money in manufacturing and was friends with the professors at Denver," the chairman of the accounting department asked him to teach a class during the spring quarter, which he greatly enjoyed. Then the chairman asked him to teach full time: 15 hours a week--five hours in a daily morning class and two daily evening classes.

He decided then and there that his "heart was in education but I knew I needed a PhD." In 1956-57 he took classes at the University of Denver so he could finish the coursework in two semesters, all the time working as CEO of his company and teaching 15 hours a week.

"I think education is a lot more than preparing to make a living or a lot of money," he said. "It is a preparation for all of life and the interests of a lifetime. Ergo, if you don't have a broad-based education, you are not really educated."

It was on a spring-break vacation to Phoenix in 1959 that he wandered over to the Arizona State (newly become) University campus and dropped in to see the business school. By accident he met Glenn Overman, dean of the business school, and fell into conversation. By the end of the visit, Bill had a job on the faculty of ASU's brand new business school.

He went back to Denver, sold his business for the price he wanted and moved to Arizona. "For the first time in my life I was an educator with no other demands on my time." As a first assignment, Dean Overman sent him out into the community to get pictures of businessmen to adorn the walls of the business school. In 1961 he became the first assistant dean of the business school.

In 1962-63 he took a leave of absence to complete his oral exams and dissertation for the PhD at the University of Michigan, returning to ASU where he served as assistant dean and headed the accounting department until 1969.

In 1969-71 he was director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, while serving the business school as associate dean from 1970 to 1981.

Dr. Huizingh was a full time professor from 1981-85, creating more new courses than anyone else in the department, for instance, one tailored to the needs of industrial engineers. He taught accounting to students in educational administration and to MBA students. Many of his students became well-known leaders in business. Bill loved keeping in touch with them through the years.

More than 500 friends, associates and former students attended his retirement dinner in 1985, when former student John B. Mumford established a $1.2 million endowment to provide scholarships in the name of his mentor. Other endowments followed, including the Huizingh Scholarships at the ASU business school and the William Huizingh Teaching Award at ASU.

"Why is accounting important?" he said. "Accounting is the language of business. Accounting can provide information that is critical and essential to making good business decisions. It's an old story: If you don't know where you have been, then you don't know where you're going. A lot of accounting is historical and can help you understand the future. Accounting is intellectually stimulating. It is economics in action--I really don't separate the two."

Two years after his first wife died in 1977 he fell in love with Edith on their first date. They married in 1979 and enjoyed 30 years of marriage, traveling the world and being active in community affairs.

After 26 years at ASU, Dr. Huizingh became a philanthropist and community volunteer in earnest. His greatest and longest passion was the Desert Botanical Garden where he served as board chairman as well as informal advisor to each Garden director since 1987. He served twice as interim director. His name is memorialized in the Garden executive director's title and in the Huizingh Operating Reserve.

Certified in Arizona as a CPA, he was active in the Arizona Society of CPAs and the American Institute of CPAs. He was a published author, was dedicated to community service, and amassed a long list of awards and honors in the fields of accounting, education, and philanthropy.

Bill loved the written word and was a well-studied grammarian and editor. One of his great delights and frustrations was to find grammatical and punctuation errors in the local newspaper. He also loved gardening and for many years grew beautiful vegetables in a community garden plot at Scottsdale Community College.

Always at the top of the list of things he loved was Edith, followed by good wine, cheese, good Irish whiskey on the rocks, gardening his little plot at SCC, flying his own plane, driving his fine little Mercedes sedan, traveling the world with Edith, elegant manners, teaching, lunching with friends, and dark chocolate.

What are things of value? "Integrity," he said. "This covers a lot of things--honesty, ethics, and morality. It covers your having the right to feel you did the right thing. My epithet is integrity, the ultimate."

A Celebration of Life gathering will be held on April 18 at 5:30 p.m. at the Desert Botanical Garden in Dorrance Hall. Tribute gifts in memory of Dr. Huizingh may be sent to: Desert Botanical Garden, The Saguaro Initiative/Endowment, 1201 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, AZ 85008.