Page 17

lare Rice believes that he would have had an entirely
      different career had he not come to the UW. He once
      thought of studying architecture at the University of
Minnesota, but instead has spent nearly four decades in aviation
electronics, working on sophisticated aircraft communication and
navigation control systems. "I was pulled to the UW by its repu-
tation and the academic challenge." He grew up in Eau Claire
where he first became intrigued with airplanes when a neighbor
built a biplane, and with electronics from a high school radio club.
   He worked for several years after graduation from high
school, and continued to do so once he arrived here at the Uni-
versity. He put in over thirty hours a week as a studio engineer at
WHA. He also held a job with the Memorial Union's catering
staff and remembers serving many a meal in Tripp Commons.
   He majored in electrical engineering because he liked the
"precision and the neatness of it. It combined my interest in
radio with a field that I believed had a good future." He belonged
to Kappa Eta Kappa, an engineering fraternity, and to the
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, of which he is a life
member. He recalls enjoying the integrated, autonomous envi-
ronment of the Madison community and remembers his UW
professors as brilliant men, "outstanding in their fields. They
were so much older than we and yet still interested in us as indi-
viduals. Professors like 'Wild Bill' Kiekhofer were especially
gifted at communicating with undergraduates."
   Rice earned his BS in 1943 and immediately entered the
Naval Air Force. He flew until 1946, and is today a retired
lieutenant commander in the Naval Air Reserve. He has been a
licensed pilot for thirty years.
   Following the war's end, he received a degree from the St.
Paul College of Law, then began his career in aviation electron-
ics, holding engineering, marketing and general management
positions with Northwest Airlines, Aeronautical Radio, Inc., and
the Bendix Corporation. He joined Collins Radio Company in
Cedar Rapids in 1968, serving as vice-president of aviation mar-
keting. In 1972 he was named vice-president and general mana-
ger of its avionics division. Following the company's merger with
Rockwell International, he was appointed president of the Col-
lins Avionics Group, in 1977. The same year he became presi-
dent of the avionics and missiles group of Rockwell, from which
he retired last year. During Rice's tenure with the company, it
was involved in a variety of major aerospace projects, including
the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs and the Columbia
shuttle missions (For another UW connection with Columbia,
see page 12).
   He is on the board of directors of the General Aviation Man-
ufacturers Association, was its chairman in 1979, and has won its
distinguished service award. He served as director of St. Luke's
Methodist Hospital, the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce
and the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra. He is currently
chairman of the Cedar Rapids Municipal Airport Commission
and serves as a director of Merchants National Bank and as a
trustee of Coe College. He is a charter member of the Aviation
Hall of Fame and a member of the Wings Club of New York. He
is listed in Who's Who in A viation and Who's Who in America. In
1979 the UW School of Engineering awarded him its Distin-
guished Service Citation, and he holds an honorary Doctor of
Engineering degree from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technol-
ogy. He is a registered professional engineer in Minnesota and in
the District of Columbia.
   Rice has been an involved supporter of the UW, having
served as co-founder and president of the Alumni Club of East-
ern Iowa and as president of WAA. He is a member of the UW
Foundation and the Bascom Hill Society. He and his wife Elaine
have three children, one of whom is a former Badger. Since
retirement he divides his time between Cedar Rapids and San
Diego and has remained active in a number of consulting and
business ventures.
hen he was a senior in high school in 1943, Fred Sten-
       der traveled down from Green Bay to visit friends at
       the University. He spent the weekend in the dorms,
took in a Wisconsin-Notre Dame football game, and went home
hooked on Madison. "To my mind, the UW was exactly what a
college should be." It was a while before he made it back, how-
ever. With the war on, Stender enlisted in the Navy. He served
aboard a supply ship in the Yellow Sea, and returned to enroll
with other veterans in 1946.
   He involved himself in a variety of campus activities, working
on WSA committees and becoming regional president of the
National Student Association. "NSA had a far-out reputation. I
wasn't very conservative, but I wasn't radically liberal either. I
participated because I wanted to balance out the extremes." He
served on the Summer Student Board and, as a Sigma Chi, on
the Intra-Fraternity Council. He helped win state legislative
approval to stage the centennial prom of 1948 at the Capitol, as it
had been in the early days. "We built a raised platform in the
rotunda, invited Lawrence Welk's band to play, and danced all
around the first floor and the balcony."
   He majored in business, specializing in accounting. "Fay
Elwell was dean of the School of Commerce, as it was called
then. He expected seniors to look like young businessmen. So
during our fourth year, we all wore felt fedoras-Dean Elwell's
hat-to class to show that we were ready for the real world."
   After graduation in 1949, Stender went on to earn a law de-
gree here. "I had Prof. Herbie Page for contracts; he was phe-
nomenal, a brilliant man who was close to eighty and still teach-
ing! Nathan Feinsinger, a prominent arbitrator in the '40s and
'50s, taught labor law, and he was another one who made a pro-
found impression on me." Stender returned to Green Bay and
practiced law for a year, then married Ann Risdon '50, and
moved into industry. He became president of Bingham and
Risdon, General Packaging Corp., and Bromann Manufacturing
Company, all food-equipment firms. In '71 they were sold to
Hercules, Inc., and the Stenders moved to Minneapolis, where he
was national sales manager for one of its subsidiaries. In 1973 he
returned to Madison as president and chairman of Madison
National Life Insurance, a company he helped found ten years
earlier. "To see that firm grow from one of the smallest in the
state to a strong financial institution has given me a tremendous
sense of accomplishment," Stender said. Earnings increased
thirtyfold under his leadership, and the company was recently
bought by the Independence Holding Company of Stamford,
Conn. Stender still serves as president and director. He is also
president of the Madison Company; a director of the Indepen-
dence Holding Company of Stamford and the M&I Bank of
Middleton; and president and partner in Cherrywood Farms,
which is a Madison stable of seventy hunter/jumper horses, one
of the largest in the area.
   No matter where he's lived, Stender has stayed active in
community service. He's taken a special interest in the Madison
Civic Music Association, serving as its treasurer and president.
"I've always loved all kinds of musi--dixieland, big band, classi-
cal. So it seemed natural to become involved with the CMA.
While I was president, we took the giant step of becoming ten-
ants of the Madison Civic Center, putting our symphony into a
first-class setting." He is a director of the Methodist Retirement
Center, the Methodist Health Services, and the Methodist Foun-
dation.
   He has also been a strong supporter of the University. He was
president of both the Green Bay and the Twin Cities Alumni
Clubs and of WAA. In the '60s he served on the University
Board of Visitors. "We talked with and assessed the needs of
hundreds of students and got the SOAR (Summer Orientation
and Advising for Registration) program off the ground." His
three oldest children are graduates and his youngest plans to
attend in another year. He is a life member of WAA and belongs
to the Bascom Hill Society, the UW Foundation, and the Friends
of the Elvehjem Museum of Art. nC                      -CH
MARCH/APRIL 1984 / 17