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Six degrees of celebration
Source: ROI, MIT Sloan alumni magazine, Published: March 2000
The extraordinary story of one family’s gift to MIT
Dr. George Schussel, Chairman and CEO of DCI (Digital Consulting, Inc.), was recently at an MIT Sloan capital campaign event, talking to the people at his table. “Everyone was wearing their badges — you know, MS ’61 and so on — and I didn’t have one,” he says. “Someone asked me about it and I said, ‘I’m not an alum, although I did take some classes at MIT.’ I got some strange looks from around the table.” Schussel has that effect on people. A man of exceedingly high energy and a gifted raconteur, he is always in the middle of things. From the timely founding of his Andover, Massachusetts-based company, which is a pioneer in technology education, to his sage advice to his then high-school-aged daughter a few years ago, Schussel seems to have a magic touch. Why, then, are he — a non-MIT alumnus — and his wife Sandra, a Vice President and Cofounder of DCI, making a gift of $2 million to the MIT Sloan School to endow a Professor of Management Science chair? When asked, “Why MIT Sloan?” Schussel doesn’t hesitate to offer a reason. In fact, he offered six good reasons. His family members hold six degrees from MIT. It all began with a conversation with Jack Rockart, Director of the Center for Information Systems Research at MIT Sloan…
