MSU Foundation Emeritus Board Member Ron Goldsberry awarded Michigan State University Distinguished Alumni Award
October 4, 2022 – Michigan State University Foundation Emeritus Board Member Dr. Ronald Goldsberry, PhD has been awarded the 2022 Michigan State University Distinguished Alumni. Dr. Goldsberry joined the board of directors of the Michigan State University Foundation in 2005 and served a distinguished 12-year term.
Dr. Ron Goldsberry, PhD.
During his tenure, Ron’s leadership was instrumental in positioning the MSU Foundation and Michigan State University to achieve real growth at a time when the MSU Foundation prepared for the wind down of the Cisplatin/Carboplatin royalty stream from Bristol Meyer Squibb.
Ron’s contributions to the Foundation resulted in the creation of new programs that assessed inventions created by MSU faculty, students, and staff.
His technical and business experience helped shape early-stage de-risking strategies and drive the operations of our MBI subsidiary organization to commercialize bio-based intellectual property.
His list of credentials is impressive which made him an idea candidate for the MSU Foundation Board of Directors. After graduating high school, he pursued a career in science, receiving his B.S. in chemistry (summa cum laude) in 1964 from Central State University, a historically black college in Ohio. He then went on to pursue his advanced degrees at Michigan State University.
After receiving his M.S. (1966) and Ph.D. (1969) degrees in chemistry, Goldsberry taught chemistry at the University of California at San Jose and worked as a research chemist at NASA’s Ames Research Center before returning to school to receive his MBA from Stanford in 1973.
Ron served two years as a U.S. Army captain, was named a member of the National Academy of Engineering, held several executive positions in Fortune 500 companies and was the only African American to serve as CEO of an American chemical company in the 1980s, among other accomplishments.
During his career, he held positions at Hewlett-Packard, Boston Consulting Company, Gulf Oil Corporation, Occidental Chemical Corporation (now known as Occidental Petroleum) and Parker Chemical Company. When Parker was bought out by Ford Motor Company in 1983, Ford named Goldsberry president and chief operating officer of Parker. Goldsberry continued to move up in the company until retiring from Ford in 2000 as global vice president for customer services. He then was a consultant on automotive practices for Deloitte Consulting.
During his time on the MSU Foundation board, Ron served on every committee within the organization including the investment committee and executive committee. In 2007, Ron was also appointed by the Board of Trustees to the Michigan State University Investment Advisory Committee charged with managing the MSU endowment.
Ron’s greatest impact was his role on the Foundation’s executive committee and his time serving as the Chairman of the Board of MBI International, a wholly owned subsidiary of the MSU Foundation, since 2006.
Under Ron’s leadership as Board Chair, the MBI management team in 2007 developed a long-term strategic plan in conjunction with MSU projects and undertook a series of short-term cost-cutting and financial restructuring initiatives in response very difficult global economic environment. Ron also pushed the MBI team to seek alternative sources of funding culminating in a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2016.
Unfortunately, unfavorable market conditions, unresolved technical hurdles and a lack of multiple long-term sustainable funding sources led to the difficult decision to wind down MBI operations. This was a difficult and complex decision that required creativity and decisive action. Ron helped move the MBI services group into the MSU BioEconomy Institute with a steady and predictable revenue stream, preserving 22 jobs in the East Lansing.
“Ron’s leadership during the life cycle of the MBI enterprise always had the best interests of Michigan State University as his guiding principle” said David Washburn, Executive Director of the Michigan State University Foundation,“Ron has been a mentor to me personally and is an individual who has the utmost respect from his peers on the Michigan State University Foundation Board and this honor is well deserved.”
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About the Michigan State University Foundation
The Michigan State University Foundation is a non-profit research foundation focused on the mission of helping Michigan State University achieve its objectives around economic development through the commercialization of intellectual property created by its faculty, staff, and students. The MSU Foundation manages an endowment built from decades of licensing revenue. In addition to providing over $10 million in research funding to MSU annually, the MSU Foundation operates three wholly owned subsidiary organizations – Spartan Innovations, Red Cedar Ventures, Michigan Rise Pre-Seed III Fund - focused on technology commercialization, new venture creation and economic development.