Jack Keigwin '59

Jack Keigwin ’59 hitchhiked from his home in Northborough, Mass., to campus for his first year of college. Raised by a hard-working aunt who toiled in a shoe factory into her 70s, having suffered the death of his father just weeks before arriving on campus, Keigwin was uncertain about his future and whether he should even be away from his younger brothers.

But he soon found “solace on the Bates campus,” he says. “I learned a tremendous work ethic. My Bates experience fostered a sense of responsibility, not only for my own being, but for the welfare and benefit of other people as well.”

To repay the gift that Bates made to him four decades ago, he and Beverly gave to restore Lake Andrews and create the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater, named for his aunt, and the Marjorie Burgoyne Walk, named for Beverly’s mother. [More...]

The session will review the critical nature of finance and backing for the entrepreneurial vision, exploring the art and science of how “deals” are established and venture-capital resources structured. The session will investigate the development of a management team along with the supervision and oversight of invested financial and human capital. Debt, credit, valuation, venture-capital firms, banks and investors also will be reviewed in this session.

Keigwin and his wife, Beverly, of Warwick, R.I., made a $1 million gift to fund a major environmental restoration project, including the Marjorie Burgoyne Lakeside Walk and new granite Keigwin Amphitheater on the Bates College campus, completed in 1998. Keigwin received his master’s in business administration from Harvard University.

Aimed at both students and community members, the Bates Seminar Series in Entrepreneurship is an integrated set of lectures and presentations covering the entrepreneurial process, its history and manifestations from conception to implementation of a new venture. The sessions focus on attributes of entrepreneurs, their search and assessment of opportunities and the identification and obtainment of resources that transform ideas into new ventures. The series exposes the unique ways that the fundamental characteristics of a liberal arts education can be applied in a variety of new ventures.

The seminar series will rely heavily on Bates alumni, parents and Maine entrepreneurs engaged in a variety of ventures, as well as experts and researchers in the field. The next presentation will be Entrepreneurship as Service at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. For more information, call the Bates College Office of Career Services at 207-786-6232.