Returning to Eugene after a four-decade professional consulting career, Dan Hollingshead '69 has come full circle.

Dan Hollingshead is back in his hometown. He's back scratching an entrepreneurial itch that started at Willamette High School. And he's a regular presence at the University of Oregon, albeit this time he's dispensing advice instead of receiving it.

Not that he ever truly left UO. After receiving his bachelor's degree in accounting, Hollingshead returned regularly for Duck football and basketball games. Since the early 1990s, he's been a member of the Accounting Circle and the Business Advisory Council at the Lundquist College.

Hollingshead knew early he wanted a business career. Growing up around his parent's store--his father Don started Eugene Skin Divers Supply in 1956, and it's now run by his brother Michael--Hollingshead created a business teaching scuba diving. "I recognized, even in high school, that studying business gave you a foundation to do anything," Hollingshead said. "I knew I wanted to go to business school and get a degree in accounting, and that's what I did."

After graduating, he landed a job in the Eugene office of Coopers & Lybrand. It was the start of what would become a thirty-seven-year career, all with that firm and its successor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, now the largest professional services firm in the world. That job took Hollingshead to progressively larger and more challenging assignments in Portland and Seattle. But friendships he made in Eugene had a way of pulling him back.

One day he was telling Randy Papé, chief executive and president of the Papé Group in Eugene and a friend for more than thirty years, that he wasn't ready to retire even though many large auditing firms, including his, set mandatory retirement at age sixty. Papé happened to be looking for someone with Hollingshead's skills, and Hollingshead wanted to lead an entrepreneurial pursuit--either of his own or with the right company.

Now, as chief executive of Papé Trucks and executive vice president of the Papé Group, Hollingshead works to expand the company's new Kenworth truck dealership business. He also helps the presidents of the company's other operating units grow their businesses.

Living in Eugene additionally affords Hollingshead an opportunity to ramp up his involvement with the university. In addition to his roles with the Lundquist College, he has served as a trustee of the University of Oregon Foundation since 1999 and has a reputation for being a thoughtful leader.

His commitment is a way of giving back to the school that provided the foundation for his career. "The university, and in particular the business school, is so critical to the success--not only of our students, but the success of our economy and the university," Hollingshead said.