Donor Honors Parents, Gives Aid to Biosystems Students

By: Jamie Creamer

For years, Russ Roberson had planned to honor his parents when they died by making a substantial donation in their memory to his beloved alma mater, Auburn University, and, specifically, to his Department of Biosystems Engineering.

But then one day it hit him: Why wait till they were gone? Why not go ahead and honor them in their living years?

And so it was that early on a football Saturday in the fall of 2005, several members of the Roberson clan converged on Auburn to officially establish the Russell and Adelaide Roberson Endowment for Scholarships in Biosystems Engineering.

“This is the greatest honor I’ve ever received,” the elder Roberson said during the ceremony. “And these, these students, they’re what it’s all about.”

As stated in the agreement, the $100,000 endowment, which will fund about $4,000 in scholarships annually for biosystems engineering majors, honors the Robersons for “their sacrifices in supporting their (four) children’s college educations and their continued support throughout the adult lives of their children.”

Education was highly valued in the Roberson home, and college educations in particular were always a given, the son says.

“There was never any question in our family that my sisters and I were all going to college,” he said.

And they did, son Russ—who had become a huge Auburn fan in his high school years living in Montgomery while his father was stationed in Turkey with the U.S. Air Force—opting for Auburn over his father’s alma mater of North Carolina State University.

During his first three years at Auburn, Roberson pursued a double major—in mechanical engineering and, of all things, English. But when the doubling up began to get the best of him, he did what he often did in college: he sought his dad’s advice.

“I asked him if I had to choose between them, which one should I go with, and he said, ‘Son, it’s like this: do you want to eat?’” Roberson recalls. He went with engineering.

At the same time, though, he realized he wanted an engineering degree that would enable him to make a difference in people’s lives. That’s when he made the switch from mechanical to biosystems engineering—or ag engineering, as it was called then.

“I became concerned that I wouldn’t be able to actually help society using the mechanical engineering degree,” he says. “I remember thinking I didn’t want to spend my life designing watch parts.

“Ag engineering gave me the opportunity to use my talents to bring a greater good, by helping those who helped produce food for the world.”

And though he went on to other institutions to earn a master’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s and doctorate in business administration, and though his career has evolved from manufacturing engineer at General Foods to general manager of Global Quality for General Electric’s magnetic resonance imaging operation, Roberson contends he uses his ag engineering degree every day.

Engineering isn’t Roberson’s only focus these days. He also owns a real estate and management consulting firm in Kenosha, Wis., just south of Milwaukee and serves as a senior faculty member at the Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University, where he teaches quality management, business policy, managerial decision-making and other courses.

If Roberson comes across as a driven man, that’s because he is one. A dark chapter in his life played a part in that.

It came in 1991, when Roberson was diagnosed with advanced-stage non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer of the blood-filtering tissues that help to fight infection and disease.

He went to four different doctors. They all gave him six months to live.

But Roberson wasn’t willing to give in. With a 16-month-old son and 3-week-old baby girl, his main concern was his family, and his father was in large part the inspiration for that.

“I knew my father had been there to encourage me when I felt overwhelmed at Auburn, and I somehow wanted to make sure I would in some way be there for mine when they experienced difficult times at college,” he says.

Even as he underwent six months of chemotherapy followed by three months of radiation, Roberson enrolled at Marquette University to work toward his MBA.

Obviously, Roberson defied the odds and beat his cancer. But that brutal struggle against the pernicious disease changed Russ Roberson.

“Now, I give back every chance I get,” he says.

That includes giving to help, not just his two children, but many others a chance for a degree. In addition to the scholarship at AU, he has established such an endowment at North Carolina State, too. But the one here has special meaning for Roberson, a huge Auburn fan.

“‘War eagle’ were the first words both my children heard in the delivery room,” he says. “To me, Auburn is as close to the Holy Land as you can get on this continent.”

To be eligible for a Russell and Adelaide Roberson scholarship, a student must be enrolled in biosystems engineering with a minimum 2.5 grade point average and should demonstrate financial need. All else being equal, preference will be given to students who are members of FarmHouse fraternity, are active members of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers or work on the maintenance of Old Nancy, a 1905, 12-horsepower J.I. Case steam engine tractor that is the pride of the College of Agriculture’s Department of Biosystems Engineering. While at Auburn, Russ Roberson was extremely involved in all three areas.

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