Baker Hall no longer stands on Bradley’s campus, but Brian Bond knows it all too well.
His father, Dr. Edward Bond, would be teaching classes amidst a plethora of other duties he willingly took on during his career. Hours upon hours would go by with Ed balancing teaching multiple classes, meeting with students to bequeath sound and lasting advice, building fellowship with other professors and racking his brain for new innovations to benefit Bradley students.
Through it all, he – somehow – would make time to spend with his family.
“We played baseball a lot…we played catch. He worked a ton but we would play baseball for half an hour before the sunlight was gone,” Brian said.
Ed Bond was by all means a monumental figure at Bradley; the amount of things on his plate could rival a Thanksgiving dinner. After arriving on campus in 1997, he fostered students through various classes in marketing, founded the Supply Chain Institute at Bradley, served on Bradley’s Strategic Plan Committee and served as the marketing department chairman for 13 years.
However, Bond’s prominence didn’t come by attaching his name to awards, books or high-ranking positions, but through the relationships he built with every person that he came in touch with before his unexpected passing on Sept. 26 at the age of 62.
“While he has a number of accomplishments, such as making full professor, numerous publications, was a finalist for the Hustad Award at the Journal of Product Innovation Management, served as a Visiting Professor at Cambridge University…. I think his greatest contributions were teaching, executive education, and protecting the culture of the department and college,” Bradley marketing professor Matt O’Brien said.
With the unfortunate and sudden loss of Bond, who was remarkably healthy, came a loss of a cornerstone of Bradley’s Foster College of Business. Students fervently adored him, fellow faculty easily befriended him and his family lovingly cherished him.
“He was incredibly outgoing,” Brian said. “You couldn’t bring him anywhere without him stopping to talk to somebody that he’d either know or made friends with.”
A caring presence
Ed possessed an affable nature and genuinely cared about those around him with a heart and personality that was larger than life. Many found that being around him caused them to lose track of time.
“My favorite memories of Ed are us sitting in one another’s office at the end of the day simply chatting,” O’Brien said. “It would often start as a simple question, but turn into an hour of catching up. Whether it was professional or personal, he always provided a great perspective and sound advice. I will remember him for his mentorship, close counsel, and hearty laugh.”
Ed had countless connections to prominent professionals in the business field. Brian mentioned how his father could not go many days by interjecting in a conversation about a topic without mentioning that he had recently talked with a foremost expert in that field. Those connections didn’t just benefit Ed, but the students that passed through his classes.
Brian recalled that a few months before his father’s death, Ed attended a conference that he had just been at mere weeks before. Brian argued that Ed did not need to go to the conference again in such a short span of time.
“Yeah, but there’s a ton of people to hire graduates here,” Ed said.
Ed would come home from such conferences with dozens of business cards. After years of teaching, those dozens would turn into hundreds. Every single one of them was inscribed with notes on the back if the company would be a good fit for Bond’s students as they graduated and entered the workforce.
“Ed had the uncanny ability to see the potential in people,” Bradley marketing professor Heidi Rottier said. “He was particularly good at helping people see their strengths and identifying how those strengths could become a career path or specialty. It was never one size fits all advice.”
Ed never wanted a student to graduate and not know what to do next. He laid a blueprint for many students for telling them about different fields, options, and what they can do, as well as acting as a beacon of help for other professors.
“Multiple times I turned to Ed for advice because I trusted his judgment,” Bradley marketing professor Mark Johlke said.
“If you insisted on not caring and failing, he’d let you do your thing but if you put in any effort, he’d go the extra mile to make sure you had good outcomes,” Brian said. “He was incredibly service-oriented and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to help students. To him, being a professor didn’t end when somebody graduated; he viewed it as a lifelong commitment.”
When a member of one of his classes would ask for advice or help with a concept, the last thing that Bond would do was be frustrated. As a former pastor, he was perpetually understanding and respectful of what others believed was right, whether in religion or in class.
“A lot of his friends were Hindu, or various other religions,” Brian said. “It definitely guided him though and he was a very principle-based person.”
Thrills on land and in the air
Just as he did in classes, research and other work in academia, Ed exuded energy in his diverse array of leisure activities; the same type of energy used to ensure every student of his had the best possible results in life.
“Leisure” may be an exaggeration, as his favorite thing to do in his downtime was riding his bike as if he were making the turns around the Arc de Triomphe in the Tour de France’s frantic final stages. Brian, a bike rider, rock climber and runner, admitted he was routinely outpaced by his father.
“Even in his 60s, I would still get on the bike and be like ‘Can we slow it down a little,’” Brian said, laughing. “He did not believe in half-measures. He’d be out there in the cold, just all the time [doing] ridiculous distances, always timed and looking for a speed record.”
Ed’s pursuit of heart-racing experiences continued when he had the chance to fly with the Blue Angels in Peoria after the person who was in front of Bond on the waitlist could not ride due to medical reasons. A sizable poster of him with the Blue Angels pilots hung up in his office, commemorating the experience riding in a plane flying upside down over the Illinois River at speeds just under the sound barrier.
“He didn’t shut up about that until the day he died,” Brian said with a smile. “I would always give him crap about [the poster], like ‘You have a giant poster of yourself essentially’ and he would respond with ‘Did you fly with the Blue Angels?’”
Ed could always strike the right chord with those around him, on the guitar as well as the piano. A ‘70s rock fan who had seen Eric Clapton shortly before his passing, he criss-crossed the country with a traveling choir group in his younger years.
His favorite artists were those of the fathers of many college-aged people today; Kansas, Chuck Barry and Jan & Dean. And like many young adults today, Brian jokingly groaned when reminiscing on the same songs he would hear on repeat thanks to his father.
“Oh my God, he loved [Jan & Dean],” Brian said. “Anytime they come on, you’d get their whole life story.”
“He’s the one that made it happen”
In many ways, Ed was the ideal authoritative figure. Not pounding his fist and being frustrated when things would not go his way, but a warm, welcoming and understanding individual who did everything in his power to make life better for those around him, even if it meant making a personal sacrifice.
“I would describe him as a fervent advocate of faculty, staff, and students who would willingly put himself in harm’s way to protect others,” O’Brien said.
“[He] could put everyone at ease through his warm and friendly smile”, marketing department chair and Ed’s longtime friend Dr. Rajesh Iyer added.
Iyer and other faculty members plan to pick up teaching any fall semester classes that Ed taught, helping carry out Bond’s foremost desire that each student will be able to graduate on time. Since the loss of his father, professors in the Foster College of Business and many others in the Bradley community have showered support upon Bond’s family, especially Iyer, who noted that Bradley plans to establish a scholarship named after Ed. The university also held a vigil for Bond shortly after his passing.
“[It’s been] just an outpouring of support, both in moral support but also in tangible support,” Brian said. “It’s been invaluable in providing both fortitude and actual physical health.”
A fervent researcher, Ed established a relationship between Bradley and Cambridge University in England during a sabbatical visit, along with Dr. Robert Scott of Bradley’s economics department. During his time as a professor, Bond’s research culminated in many publications, which heavily influenced Rottier.
“Ed had high standards for himself and everyone around him,” Rottier said. “He believed that Bradley faculty had the ability and obligation to excel at both teaching and research. He knew that both parts of the “professor life” were important and vital to our success.”
Rottier’s dream had been to teach at Bradley and her, along with marketing professor, Jim Muncy fondly reminisced on Bond helping them acclimate to the university in any way possible.
“I’ll remember the way he helped me become a better teacher in my new environment when I first came to Bradley,” Muncy said.
“I’ll never forget him inviting me to his office, and then asking me if I would consider teaching at Bradley…he’s the one that made it happen,” Rottier said. “Once I was on board as a new faculty member, he helped guide me and coached me on how I could set myself apart in the department.”
Bond set students, graduates and fellow faculty apart; and in doing so he set himself apart as a guide, leader and friend to all who knew him. A prime force in the establishment of Bradley’s bejeweled Business and Engineering Convergence Center, Bond spent many an hour in that building, as well as its predecessor, Baker Hall.
Brian’s first memory of his father was sitting in the back of a classroom during those nights in Baker while Ed balanced fatherhood and his career. It is true that Ed’s perpetual flurry of activity caused him to not be home often. But in a near paradox, Brian attested that his dad always had time for what he loved.
“When I was a kid, he was trying to get tenure, publishing constantly, teaching night classes but he would never miss my baseball game.”
