Stanley to take charge of University businesses

Next to the city hall building in in a small southern California town called Twentynine Palms, there is a park named after Clifford Stanley.

It's not a famous tourist spot or somewhere most people will ever visit, but for Stanley -- the former Marine Corps major general who will officially become Penn's executive vice president, the University's top business official, today -- it is a reminder of one of his favorite accomplishments.

The Twentynine Palms community honored Stanley during the two-year period that he spent serving as commanding general of the the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, a nearby military training base. Appealed to by local officials, Stanley spearheaded a successful effort to annex a portion of the base to the town, increasing its population from 15,000 to 25,000 and thereby earning it a boost in state tax revenues, according to Twentynine Palms Finance Director Ron Peck. The extra money helped the town fund improvements to roads, schools and housing.

"They had been trying for years to increase the revenue," Stanley said, explaining that the base had refused the town's proposal on numerous other occasions. "For years, [the base] had said no. I went ahead and went through the process... [I] wanted to make a lasting tribute."

"He was very friendly and helpful to the city," Peck said. "Very active in the community."

Stanley's help with the annexation, coupled with his active engagement in the town's civic life, Peck said, earned him a reputation among Twentynine Palms' citizens as a compelling leader -- a description that is often employed when talking about Stanley.

"He knows how to motivate people," said Major Dan Temple, Stanley's former aide-de-camp and personal assistant in the Marine Corps. "You're willing to put forth 110 percent when you work for him."

While one of Stanley's most memorable successes may have taken place in the small-town arena, his 30-year military career has taken him around the world and placed him in many different roles. After leaving the Twentynine Palms base in 2000, the Washington, D.C., native served as deputy commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., where he oversaw the Marine Corps' training and education programs and concept development.

In the past, his varied positions have included serving as the Marine Corps' principle representative to the Joint Requirements Board in support of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, teaching leadership and psychology at the U.S. Naval Academy and heading a battle assessment team in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm.

But what Stanley prides himself on -- and considers the most important asset he brings to Penn -- is not his list of military accomplishments, but the leadership capacity and people- skills that he developed throughout his career.

"It all boils down to serving others and making a difference in other people's lives," he said. "Leadership across the board -- I think that's what stands out."

Learning how to be an effective leader and "develop some pretty fine-tuned people skills" has been one of Stanley's major focuses throughout his life. As an undergraduate at South Carolina State University, he studied psychology and served as student body president and later went on to earn a Master's degree in counseling from Johns Hopkins University.

But it was his experiences in the Marine Corps, particularly his role as an instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in the mid-1970s, that motivated Stanley to translate his self-described passion for people into the field of education.

"That's when I really fell in love with it," Stanley said. Since then, his military career has focused on the "training pipeline," which included the development of a distance learning program for the Marines, he said. Eventually, it took him to Quantico, where he controlled education and training programs for the entire Marine Corps.

According to Stanley's colleagues, his people skills are quick to show.

"People will spend one minute with him and he's just so personal that after that one minute you feel like you know him and he knows you," Temple said. "You run across a lot of people that say, 'Oh, yeah, I care about people,' but they don't really mean it -- not the way he does."

"It's just something about him, when you talk to him, you feel like you're the most important person in the room, the most important person in the world," Temple added. "You start working for him, you'll want to be a part of the team, because he'll motivate you in that way.... Whatever his goals are, you want to help him get there."

Temple said that during Stanley's two years at Quantico, his reception within the community was unmatched.

"He had such a following," Temple said. "There were just so many people that followed him throughout his career.... When he entered a room, people just gravitated towards him."

One result of this was Stanley's success in alleviating long-standing tensions between the base and the surrounding community, Temple noted.

"As soon as he got there, that friction just ended immediately," he said.

Despite Stanley's success at Quantico, Temple said few of his colleagues were surprised by his decision to move into the field of higher education.

"Everybody knew that he was going to go on to give something back to the community," Temple said. "A lot of generals go out and they'll capitalize on their background and they'll make a lot of money [as defense contractors]... he's not that type."

But while Stanley's decision to step down from his military post may not have shocked his colleagues, it did leave them "devastated," Temple said. When Stanley started seriously considering coming to Penn, the Marine Corps quickly offered him a promotion that would have made him the highest-ranking African American in the Marine Corps and earned him a third military star.

But for Stanley, coming to Penn seemed like the right choice, even though, he noted, he didn't feel that his military career was really over yet.

"After I made the decision, I was pretty excited," Stanley said. "I didn't really want a job as much as I wanted to apply my passion, which is serving. And this is it."

Although leaving a military base for an urban college campus may not seem like the easiest transition, Stanley's colleagues say they don't foresee a problem.

"People may think because he's a general he's just giving orders... it doesn't really work that way in the military," Temple said. "I think he's going to be great for the school.... He's going to be all over the place, and he's not checking up on people, he's not making sure people are doing their jobs, but he's out there to see what's going on."

Stanley himself hasn't had much time lately to ponder what he'll feel like in his new role, he said. After all, he made the decision to come to Penn just a little over a month ago.

"I really haven't even had time to think about that," he said last week, as he was moving into his new Philadelphia home. "Even now, I know that I start next week, and my primary focus now is to really help my family and my wife get settled."

Stanley fills the spot vacated in July when John Fry left Penn to become president of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.

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