Burton M. “Skip” Sack ’61 endows professorship
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Skip Sack, who is now a private investor in 18 start-up companies, has shown his great love for the restaurant business by pledging $3 million. |
Skip Sack got his first job at 13, washing dishes at Howard Johnson’s. He made his first gift to his alma mater – $20 – the year after he graduated from the School of Hotel Administration in 1961. As he worked his way up at Howard Johnson Company from advertising assistant to senior VP, developing their Ground Round restaurant chain along the way, he continued to give steadily but modestly to Cornell.
That was then.
This year, Sack, who is now a private investor in 18 start-up companies, has shown his great love for the restaurant business by pledging $3 million to fund the Burton M. Sack ’61 Professorship in Food and Beverage Management. Named professorships are highly important to the School’s ability to attract and retain outstanding faculty, and Sack’s gift will go far to assure our continued excellence in a field that is vital to the hospitality industry.
Sack has made two other major gifts since the turn of the millennium. In 2001 he established the Burton M. Sack Restaurant Education Endowment, which has supported the work of Alex Susskind, associate professor of food and beverage management and director for the School’s concentration in hospitality facilities and operations. In 2003 he made another generous commitment to name the Sack Family Hospitality Suite in the Beck Center.
Sack is a past chairman of the National Restaurant Association. As an Applebee’s franchisee he opened 16 restaurants in New England between 1986 and 1994, then sold them to Applebee’s International, served for three years as an executive vice president, and became a member of their board of directors.