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The announcement was made by Lincoln College
President David Gerlach at a special ceremony on Friday, Sept. 28.
Both MacKinnon and his wife, Sandy, were in Lincoln for the
announcement, which included unveiling a plaque designating the
naming of the MacKinnon School of Business.
The plaque is displayed in a special section of
Lincoln College’s Gehlbach Hall, which will house the business
school. A section of the building will be set aside as a
collaborative work space for business students, with large screen
televisions installed so that students can monitor stock markets and
business news.
“I can’t think of a better role model for our business students,”
Gerlach said. “In the early 1980s, he took over a business that had
gone bankrupt not once, but twice, and turned it into one of the
most successful heavy equipment dealerships in the country. Along
the way, he earned a reputation for integrity that led to numerous
honors for business ethics and leadership.”
Giving the Lincoln College business programs a clear identity will
help the college develop a single brand for its business bachelor’s
degree options that will help foster growth and further enhance the
prestige of its business programs, Gerlach said.
Earlier this year, Lincoln College awarded MacKinnon an honorary
doctorate for his outstanding contributions to his profession. He
was the College’s commencement speaker this year and while on
campus, he agreed to participate in the Lincoln College Excellence
in Leadership series, offering advice and insights from his business
career.
MacKinnon has long been a supporter of Lincoln College, which he
credits with helping him turn around his life and set him on a path
to success. In 2007, MacKinnon provided a surprise gift of $100,000
to support the fundraising campaign to build the Lincoln Center. In
2014, he made a multi-year commitment for a $250,000 endowment which
will provide $12,500 in scholarship assistance in perpetuity.
In late June, MacKinnon announced a $1 million unrestricted
contribution to further Lincoln College’s mission.
Gerlach noted that MacKinnon succeeded in business despite
challenging odds stacked against him. He was diagnosed with ADHD
(Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) at a time when the
learning disability was little known and few treatments existed. His
high school advisor once suggested that he might be the first senior
class president to fail to graduate. While Sandy was in his teens
his father died unexpectedly, throwing his own future into doubt.
MacKinnon spent most of his career working for and with Yale, the
manufacturer of fork lifts and other heavy equipment that is now
Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc.
In 1982, MacKinnon realized his dream of owning his own Yale
dealership when a dealership in Tampa, Florida, became available. It
was a troubled dealership that had gone bankrupt and had a negative
net worth of $1 million. In many ways, it was the worst possible
time to take over the business. It was the early 1980s and the
national economy was deep in the midst of one of the worst
recessions in history.
“There were a lot of times where I felt I was either
crazy or stupid, and maybe both,” MacKinnon says.
MacKinnon set about restoring the dealership’s reputation,
personally calling on its customers with a simple request: “Give us
one more chance.” He visited disgruntled customers, apologized for
the past, asked them what had gone wrong and how he could make it
right.
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That ethical, customer-focused approach has guided MacKinnon for
decades, helped him build the once troubled dealerships into one of the most
successful in the Southeast, and earned him a well-deserved reputation for
business integrity.
When asked which of his many awards he is most proud of, he chooses two that
exemplify strong character traits.
One is the H.L. Culbreath, Jr., profile in leadership award
selected by the Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the other is the 2013 Tampa Bay
Ethics Award, presented by the University of Tampa Center for Ethics. MacKinnon
sees his own success as a testimonial to the combined power of education and the
free market system.
Without Lincoln College, he says he might have spent his life working at a dead
end job instead of pursuing his dreams. He adds, that in his view, leaders
aren’t born, instead they come about through lots of great coaching from
mentors.
Mentorships and ethical training will be key components of the new MacKinnon
School of Business, Gerlach said, with the school offering opportunities for
students to benefit from real world exercises and training. Initially, the
program will encompass the Lincoln College Lincoln Campus and ABE (Accelerated
Bridge to Education) bachelor’s degrees in Business Management, Sport
Management, Organizational Leadership, Supply Chain and Logistics Management,
and Entrepreneurship. This fall, Lincoln College added a four-year bachelor’s
degree program in Organizational Leadership to its Lincoln campus. As additional
business programs are added in the coming years, including business-related
master’s degree programs, they will be folded into the MacKinnon School of
Business.
More scenes from the ceremony
[Mark Gordon, Lincoln College with photos
by Derek Hurley, Lincoln Daily News] |
