Alumni Hall of Fame
Richard G. Cline
Richard G. Cline is a 1957 graduate of UIUC. He majored in political science with minors in history and philosophy, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated with highest honors.
After three years in the U.S. Navy, Mr. Cline became managing editor of American Veterinary Publications, Inc. He then served 22 years with Jewel Companies, Inc., a Chicago-based diversified retailer; he was elected the company’s Chairman and CEO in 1984. Mr. Cline then became Chairman and CEO of Nicor, Inc., a natural gas distribution and container shipping company. He retired from Nicor in 1995 and shortly thereafter established Hawthorne Investors, Inc., a private investment and management advisory company.
Mr. Cline is a member of the boards of directors of K-mart Corporation,
PepsiAmericas, Inc., and Ryerson Tull, Inc., and he is a trustee and Chairman of the Northern Funds and Northern Institutional Funds. He has also been a corporate board member for Pet, Inc., Aurera, S.A. de C.V and Hussmann International, Inc.; he was chairman of board for Hussman. He has also served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and was its Chairman from 1991 to 1994.
Cline has been an Executive in Residence and guest lecturer on business ethics at UIUC’s College of Commerce and Business Administration; he is a past chairman and life member of that college’s Advisory Council. He and his wife established the Richard G. and Carole J. Cline Symposium on Values and the Public Interest in the Department of Political Science at UIUC. They also sponsor the Winter Forum in the Great Cities Program at the Chicago campus. He was named UIUC’s Charles S. Hyneman Fellow in 1991 and has received the University’s Alumni Achievement Award.
Cline has been Chairman of the University of Illinois Foundation and was Co-chairman of Campaign Illinois that, by 2002, had raised $1.5 billion in private funds for the University.