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Jago wants to bring leadership and management expertise to the City Council

TOMÁS ORIHUELA Mar 27, 2017

COLUMBIA — Art Jago gives two wounded thumbs up when he talks about how well door-to-door campaigning is going for him.

Either knocking or ringing the doorbell at over 1,500 homes has been a positive experience, the Fifth Ward City Council candidate said, but it

hasn't been good for his thumbs, which are sporting Band-Aids these days.

Jago said he wasn't looking forward to going door to door. He �gured it would be a monotonous but unavoidable routine.

He was wrong.

"I love it," he said. "Every door is a new world: new reactions, new responses, new feedback."

Jago has been working for MU since 1994, when he moved from Texas to become a management professor and chair of the Department of

Management at the Trulaske College of Business. If he wins the election on April 4, he said, he'll retire after 27 years at MU so he can dedicate

himself to council matters.

Jago grew up with his little brother and two older sisters in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago.

"I come from a very close family," he said. "My vivid memories are in the Boy Scouts camping with my father, �shing and hunting with him."

Jago recalled going duck hunting at 5 a.m. near the Fox River. "We would hide in the bushes and freeze to death until a duck appeared," he

said. "I went hunting with him for three years, and we never shot one single duck."

CLAIRE ROUNKLES/MISSOURIANFifth Ward candidate Art Jago talks about what he will bring as a candidate to the Columbia City Council onMarch 17 at the Columbia Country Club.

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Jago also remembers a trip to the Boy Scouts' high-adventure camp, Philmont Scout Ranch, in Cimarron, New Mexico, where he learned

survival skills, how to cook outdoors and to shoot a bow. He took the train by himself to Philmont from Chicago, which was an adventure of

itself for a 13-year-old.

"Everybody should go at least once," he said. "I learned leaderships skills, too. We understood the importance of friendship and teamwork."

Most of Jago's life has been linked in some way to leadership and managerial decisions. When he attended Northwestern University in

Illinois, he was resident adviser while majoring in mechanical engineering. In addition to starting a �lm club and playing tennis, Jago met an

education major student from Kentucky who lived in the next dorm room. She would later become his wife, Janet Jago.

Revolution at NorthwesternThe Jagos were a pioneer couple. Back then, it was unusual that men and women lived together in a coed dormitory, and it was even less

common that they would be on the same �oor. Art Jago said his dorm at Northwestern was the �rst to break from that tradition.

"Men and women lived one mile away from each other back then," Jago said. "It was revolutionary."

Two and a half years after they met, and just after they graduated, they got married in Louisville, Kentucky. That was 44 years ago.

"We were very good friends," Janet Jago said. "We used to work with other friends and go out a lot all together."

After their wedding, the Jago's headed to New Haven, Connecticut, where Art Jago completed a masters degree and a doctorate in

administrative sciences at Yale University.

Texas came next. In 1976, Jago got a job at the University of Houston, and his life changed when his son, Arthur, was born in 1990. That's

when Jago started going by Art, following a four-generation family tradition.

Europe comes knockingSoon after joining the faculty at Houston, Jago started building bridges with Europe. First in 1984 and later in 1992, he was awarded two

Senior Fulbright Awards to teach at Johannes Kepler University, in a small town called Linz, in Austria.

"That was a big deal," he said. "It was my �rst immersion in a di�erent culture."

Jago also got the chance to work in Spain when the University of Houston and Banesto, a former Spanish Bank owned by multi-millionaire

Mario Conde, started an English-language masters of business administration program called the Madrid Business School in Spain's capital

city.

The agreement was sealed on May 6, 1988. Jago said it was huge because it was Spain's �rst MBA program. Jago directed the program from

Houston and had to travel close to half a dozen times a year.

"Mario Conde was a very charismatic individual," Jago said. "He was a superstar in Madrid."

The MBA program proved unsustainable, however, and eventually folded in 1995. Apart from Europe, Jago also has experience teaching in

China, Mexico and Canada.

Columbia, the last stop in his journeyAfter 18 years in Houston, the family chose to come to Columbia when Jago was o�ered a prestigious job as chair of the management

department at the Trulaske College of Business.

He soon began to be feared for his demanding grading system. MU senior Joe Hempen said he was warned about that before he enrolled in

Jago's Organizational Behavior class.

"He's de�nitely known for being a hard grader," Hempen said. "That's one of the things that I knew when I came to his class."

On a recent Monday, Jago wore his usual gray trousers, blue shirt and jacket and spotless black loafers while lecturing a class of about 20

students on the basics of power and then showing a video about Stanley Milgram's research on obedience. He lectures with a friendly style,

making eye contact with his students and continuously moving from side to side in the classroom.

4/8/2017 Jago wants to bring leadership and management expertise to the City Council | Elections | columbiamissourian.com

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Hempen said Jago is a fairly typical teacher. "I wouldn't say he's really di�erent from other professors. If anything sets his apart, it's his

grading. That's what he's known for," Hempen said. "I do think he's fair, though."

Jago said one thing that frustrates him about today's college students is that they're easily distracted.

"I wish my student focused more on their studies," he said. "I don’t understand why people need to check their email or send messages

during class."

The happy face at forumsJago brings the same a�ability he shows in his classes at Cornell Hall to the candidate forums he's been attending for the past several weeks.

He likes to scan the audience, crack a smile and thank them at the end of the event. He looked on with pride when his opponent, Matt Pitzer,

acknowledged he is a former Jago student.

Most of the forums end with a round of applause for the candidates. At a Friday night forum on evironmental issues, however, it was Jago

who stood up and clapped for the people who attended.

And when Grace Whitlock Vega interrupted him at a forum hosted by Race Matters, Friends, to say many people in the room didn't know

who he was, Jago humbly agreed to introduce himself.

Humility, sacri�ce and decision-making. That's the cocktail for success that Jago hopes to bring to the council if Fifth Ward voters elect him.

He said he made the leap at a council seat after seeing how divided the country was after November's general election.

"I think that everyone needs to do what they can to provide some degree of coming together and closing those divisions."

Supervising editor is Scott Swa�ord.

Bio BoxART JAGO

5303 E. Tayside Circle

PERSONAL: Age 64. Married to Janet Jago. They have one son.

ON THE WEB: Facebook page

OCCUPATION: MU Business professor

EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University, 1972; master's degree and doctorate in administrative sciences from YaleUniversity, 1975 and 1977.

BACKGROUND: 1972 recipient of the Northwestern University Technological Institute Alumni Award; held the Baker Hughes Professorship of Business Administration at theUniversity of Houston; member of the Academy of Management, the Decision Sciences Institute, the American Psychological Association and the Society for IndustrialOrganizational Psychologists; presented with two Senior Fulbright Awards to teach at Johannes Kepler University, Austria, in 1984 and 1992; director from Houston of calledthe Madrid Business School in Spain; has published research in 24 different journals and co-wrote a book with called "The New Leadership: Managing Participation inOrganizations."

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