Wm. Polk Carey, the namesake of ASU's business school, eyed a bronze sculpture of his likeness Friday afternoon, and a look of surprise flashed across his face.
"The only problem is, I wish I looked that good," Carey said, stepping up to the microphone on a podium on the patio of the W. P. Carey School of Business.
The comment drew laughter from the more than 100 business students, alumni and employees in the audience -- many of whom were wearing maroon polo shirts bearing the school's logo.
They had gathered for the unveiling of the bust, donated by the school's class of 2003.
The bust, which Phoenix-area sculptor and ASU business school graduate Carl Dahl shaped for $20,000, is a bronze likeness of Wm. Polk Carey -- only without glasses.
It is on display in the school's MBA reception foyer in the Business Administration building south of the Memorial Union.
Cynthia Barnes Pharr, director of graduate alumni affairs for the school, said Dahl used $15,000 of the fee to create an MBA fellowship in the name of his wife Deborah and kept the rest to pay for the sculpture's materials.
The class of 2003 raised $30,000 to pay for the statue.
The $10,000 remaining after the sculpture's fee has been added to the W. P. Carey MBA Fellowship Fund, Pharr said.
Cliff Schertz, president and CEO of Camisa Technologies, Inc. in Chandler and a 2003 graduate of the W. P. Carey MBA-executive program, ran the fund-raising effort March through May 2003.
Schertz said the business school is trying to build a culture of giving back to the University and to others in life.
Focusing his gaze on the real Carey, who sat in the audience for much of the presentation, he said of the statue:
"What better way to say back to everybody and this school, 'We're proud of what you've done, and we appreciate it.' "
Reach the reporter at ilan.brat@asu.edu.
