As seen in the spring 2025 Ivy magazine.
Asked what advice he would give to students and young alumni of the Ivy College of Business, Richard Stark (’71 industrial administration) shared these words of wisdom:
- “Whatever the endeavor, work hard at it. Don’t settle for just getting by.”
- “Find your passion and follow it.”
- “Be the best version of yourself you can be.”
Simple yet profound statements, they could also serve as the basis for a case study of Stark’s remarkable career and life.
“When I came to Iowa State, I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Stark admits. His parents had encouraged him to consider majors outside of agriculture, “so I enrolled in what was then the College of Sciences and Humanities and chose the industrial administration major and minors in economics and psychology.”
His educational journey had the typical ups and downs. After his first-year advisor told him his grades were so low he should pack it in and return home, he took it as a challenge – and changed advisors.
But Stark also made a commitment to “learn how to learn.” He’s still proud of earning one of three B’s (with no A’s awarded) in one of Professor Chuck Handy’s famously demanding accounting courses.
Then, the summer of his sophomore year, Stark interned in Chicago, Illinois, for Richard Frymire, a friend of his father’s who had a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. “And I became enchanted with the business of commodities futures,” he said.
With that summer’s earnings and the next, Stark bought a seat on the board and started trading. He was still in college.
“Give something of yourself – your time or money. You want to be able to look back someday with a sense of fulfillment that you made a difference.”
— Richard Stark
Soon after Stark graduated, he married his wife, Joan, and joined the National Guard in quick succession. The couple moved to Chicago, where he pursued his passion trading commodities futures. So quickly did his star rise that when he was 30, he ran successfully for a directorship on the board of the Chicago Board of Trade – and found himself in rarefied company.
“At that first board meeting, on my right sat the chairman of the board of Sears, and on my left sat George Stigler.” Stigler, Stark knew, was an economics professor at the University of Chicago, which had just been named the number one business school in the nation and had recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
What came next still amazes Stark.
“George leaned over to me and said, ‘Richie’ – he always called me Richie –‘where’d you go to school?’”
Stark hesitated. “It wasn’t Harvard or Yale or anything like that.” Then he told Stigler he’d gone to Iowa State.
To Stark’s surprise, Stigler said, “What a special school! I used to teach there.”
At that moment, something in Stark crystalized. “I’d always known that Iowa State was a very good university. Very academically demanding,” he said. But hearing Stigler, a Nobel Laureate, confirm that fact, “It dawned on me: I belonged to one of the truly great land-grant universities.”
At the end of Stark’s term as a director and with their first girl (they would have five daughters in all) about to start school, the Starks made the decision to move back to Iowa and farm his grandmother’s land. He continued to trade commodities futures through Iowa Commodities, the highly successful firm he started with his partner, Mike Frischmeyer, another Iowa State alumnus.
Through it all, he has always appreciated the lessons he learned at Iowa State. “Iowa State laid the foundation for me to launch myself into the business world,” he said.
Stark still trades commodities for himself. He still owns farmland, which he leases out. “The guys let me help out so long as I promise not to break anything,” he jokes. He’s still married to Joan, “the love of my life.” Their five daughters are grown and raising families of their own, with six Iowa State alumni and current students among them.
Both Starks have garnered multiple awards and accolades. Their volunteer roles just at Iowa State and the Iowa State University Foundation would fill up an entire page. They are passionate philanthropists. The Richard and Joan Stark Lecture Hall in the Gerdin Business Building and the Stark Performance Center at Iowa State are testaments to their generosity.
On that subject, Stark shares one last valuable piece of wisdom. “Give something of yourself – your time or money,” he said. “You want to be able to look back someday with a sense of fulfillment that you made a difference.”
