In 1978, China had just started opening up to the outside world after 30 years of closure and 10 years of chaotic, destructive Cultural Revolution. For those of us who were deprived of higher education during that period, we earnestly sought every possible opportunity to study abroad. Thanks to President Robert Kemble’s visionary establishment of a student exchange program between Lamar and Jilin Universities, we were fortunate to become the first students ever from Communist China to enter Lamar for a master’s degree in business.
Studying in the United States was a dream that came true. Yet it also posed a huge challenge to us: we had no idea about the western economy, capitalism, marketing, management, etc. As a result, we had to take “prerequisite” classes for a business major and make up for our lack of basic knowledge before being officially enrolled into the master’s degree program. Every of these “make-up” classes required effort to comprehend, not only the concepts that were completely foreign, but also the ability to put them into practice in order to pass the exams. This included, but was not limited to, numerous case studies of management, business law, skills for marketing a new product, discounting cash flows of a bond issue, debits/credits in accounting entries, and essays on demand/supply curves, to name a few.
For three years at Lamar starting in 1981, we were welcomed wholeheartedly by the faculty, fellow students, and many others. Our first impressions of America, and our memories of that time, have stayed with us ever since. President Kemble and his wife Helen took care of us like members of their family and gave us tremendous support at every level of our stay at Lamar. From adapting to campus living in America, to helping us understand American history, society, and lifestyles. We still remember vividly when, soon after we arrived, someone knocked at our door. It was Helen, who had come to see if we had settled in. She discovered that we needed a kitchen knife for cooking. She soon came back with one which we have continued using for more than 40 years!
Shortly after we settled down, Carol, their youngest daughter, took us to a theatre to see our first America movie, “Victory”. Pele (The Brazilian football superstar) led an Allied prisoner team and beat a German team with a back kick. Bob and Helen took us to church for our first Christmas in the U.S. We learned about the religious traditions and the holiday atmosphere. Later, we went to a country fair with the Kemble family and got a taste of local festivities. It is these experiences that paved the path of our future success, both culturally and academically.
We first met Bob and Helen in 1978 when they made their first exploratory visit to China. That began our life-long friendship and we became members of the Kemble family. Studying at Lamar was the starting point for realizing our American dreams. For this, we are forever grateful to Bob. He gave us the opportunity and guided us throughout the journey to achieve our accomplishments today.
– After graduating with degrees in business from Lamar, we went on to pursue advanced studies. I obtained a degree of Master of Accountancy and became a Certified Public Accountant. My husband took a PhD in Operations and Logistic Management. We then started careers in the business and academic fields, respectively. Today, I am a retired professional after taking various positions in public accounting firms and international banks. My husband continues to serve as a tenured professor at St John’s University, New York.
As soon as he was old enough, Bob Kemble began working in his family’s greenhouses that stretched out behind their home. His parents’ floral business demanded constant attention. In the cold, dark winters of 1930s Iowa, Bob and his brother Bud shovelled the coal that fired the furnaces and kept the plants warm. Family holidays came second to everyone else’s. Flowers were in highest demand around major calendar events like Christmas and Easter. Only after the orders were filled and his parents had napped would their celebrations begin. Like so many of the ‘Greatest Generation’ the value of hard work was instilled in him early.
Hard work alone doesn’t make you a great leader, and Bob was a great leader. Leadership demands skills, and the experience and intelligence necessary for using the right skills at the right time. For his generation that journey often began by signing up for the military as soon as they graduated from high school. In 1943 a 17-year-old could enlist only if they were turning 18 within two months. Recruits still had to pass a physical. Not easy when, like Bob, you had a heart murmur. But if you stood at the back of the room and ran in place until it was your turn with the medic, you could squeak by undetected. It no doubt helped that he had been a varsity basketball player and had a broad, engaging smile.
Eighteen months later, buried up to his chin in snow in the Ardennes, Bob was ordered out of his foxhole and back to the message center. There the Battalion Sergeant-Major eyed him up and asked, “You Kemble? I suppose you want to accept the appointment to West Point?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy, Sergeant.”
“You are Kemble, 17170366?,” the voice of authority boomed. Confused, Bob nodded. He had never made application to West Point. “Damn it, you’ve got an appointment to the Military Academy and I have to confirm that you want to accept it.” There was more than a little sarcasm in the Sergeant Major’s voice.
“Yeah,” Bob said. “What do I do now?”
“Get the hell out of here and report to HQ.”
“Yessir!”
Helen
For the next 28 years, Bob served in the Army. He met Helen Elfstrom at the offices of Representative Karl LeCompte, his congressman and sponsor for his appointment to West Point. With a matchmaker’s flair, LeCompte tossed his car keys to his assistant and said, “Helen, why don’t you show Bob Mount Vernon?” They were married a year later. Their first years together were busy. A boy was born while stationed in Kentucky, followed by two girls while stationed in Germany. Then Bob deployed to Korea after a stint teaching at West Point and securing his master’s degree. Two more kids joined the family, and the station wagon was officially full.
In 1962 he served for two years as the executive assistant to the Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bob learned firsthand what happens in a national crisis and the crucial role America’s armed services play in emergencies, both international and domestic. The first key event was the Cuban Missile Crisis and the second was President Kennedy’s assassination. Given his rank as a major, while doing the work of a colonel, it was clear to Bob that he could stay with the Pentagon if he wanted. In his heart, however, he felt a different calling. It led him into the business of making the country as strong and secure as possible by developing the finest officer corps in the world. When the opportunity arose to return as a permanent faculty member at the US Military Academy at West Point, he gratefully accepted.
Teaching
Over the next eight years he taught humanities, revamped the liberal arts program, and gained his PhD. The family thrived at West Point and took advantage of every facility the university offered. A revolving door of the best minds in American arts and letters came through the Kemble house. Names like Arthur Miller and Kurt Vonnegut are not commonly associated with military education. Particularly in the 1960s. But that was the point. Bob wanted officers to have the broadest educational experiences possible. Otherwise, how would they understand what motivated their opponents? After all, the Army’s ultimate goal was not killing people. Its goal was to avoid war altogether, if it could.
Leaders seek understanding, and the secret to understanding others is getting them to talk while listening attentively to what they say. Then, based on their input, decide a course of action that benefits all parties. Having spent his career to this point fulfilling the demands of his superiors, sorting through vast amounts of intelligence to find the relevant nuggets, and actively engaging with allies on the ground, Bob understood the power of appreciative inquiry. Add that to his decision-making skills, and he was able to inspire change that fully engaged stakeholders. He needed these skills. His teaching career was about to end and his administrative one was about to take off.
NMMI
On his way back from Europe in 1945 aboard a rattling C47 Skytrain, Bob met his best friend, Jack Rust. Tall, angular, and a lacrosse champion, Jack attended West Point, graduating with Bob in the class of 1949. Jack’s career led him into business and eventually to New Mexico. An active member of the community, Jack served on the board of regents for the New Mexico Military Institute. NMMI was established in 1891 as the college prep school for wealthy ranchers from all over the Southwest and Texas. By 1972 its academic mission needed an overhaul. Jack knew Bob would thrive in the role of Superintendent and President for the institute. Helen agreed. “It will be a new adventure,” she said. They packed up their car and the two kids who were still at home and headed west.
Before making any changes in his new role, Bob met with the faculty, students, and the board of regents to understand how the school was functioning, what it needed, and how to fund the required changes. He then spent the next six years steadily improving the academics and facilities and bringing NMMI up to national educational leadership standards again.
Lamar University
His success did not go unrecognized and, while not actively looking for another role, when Lamar University in Texas invited him to become its President in 1978, he accepted. It was a bigger role, a bigger challenge, but Bob’s superpowers in leadership were coming to their peak. Once again, he diligently did his research and sought out voices from every aspect of the university to best understand what needed to change and the relative priorities for a new president.
One of those voices was President George H.W. Bush, former Texas congressman and then-current director of the CIA. As a result of a chance meeting, Bob was invited to join an exclusive cadre of educators on a diplomatic mission to China. Peeking behind the Bamboo Curtain, the goal was to help China improve its education system through constructive criticism and engagement. Two years later, in 1980, Lamar initiated America’s first student and faculty exchange program with China’s Ministry of Education. Several members of the program’s first cohort of students became lifelong Kemble family friends.
Public Safety
After serving as president for seven years and chancellor for three, Bob and Helen decided to try retirement and went back to New Mexico, having fallen in love with it. Retirement was not in the cards for Bob. Governor Gary Carruthers called and asked him to become New Mexico’s first cabinet secretary for his newly formed Department of Public Safety. “You must have the wrong guy, Governor. I don’t know anything about public safety,” Bob said, echoing his conversation in the Ardennes forty years before. Carruthers had done his homework and knew he had the right guy.
So how did Bob address the challenge in front of him? How to set up a brand-new department made up of over 500 very well-established sheriffs, highway patrol officers, and drug enforcement agents who rarely communicated with each other, let alone worked together? Well, a leader would sit down and get them to talk with each other while listening attentively. That’s exactly what Bob did. And although he had told Carruthers he would do the job for a year, he realized it would take at least three years to put his new department on a firm footing. The Department of Public Safety continues to this day and builds on Bob’s improvements to coordinating emergency responses, law enforcement training, administrative support, and collaboration across departments.
Retirement
Finally laying down his badge in 1990, he and Helen traveled the world together. Something they had always done, but now it could be the two of them on their own time and own agenda. Having made her first solo flight at the age of 17, Helen was a keen adventurer in her own right. When Helen passed in 2007, Bob was bereft, but not ready or willing to give up on life. Along with his growing family, his wide circle of friends from his time at the State Capitol Building in Santa Fe embraced him and buoyed him up.
In the Santa Fe circle was another inveterate adventurer, Nancy Clark Reynolds. They became close companions and continued traveling for as long as they could. With his extended family scattered around the country, Bob generously sponsored cruises for his 85th and 90th birthday celebrations. It was his way of getting the Kemble Klan together under one roof again and keeping them close at hand. His lifelong passion for walking and exercise kept him active until the very last months of his life. Having inherited his father’s passion for music, it was never far away. The old family wind-up Edison gramophone was eventually displaced by YouTube, but neither medium replaced his joy of attending live opera and musical reviews.
Blessings
Bob always had questions for people. “What’s the plan for today? What are you doing, now? Where are you? I want to know.” He also let people know, in the plain language of Iowa he grew up with, what he needed and how he felt. He had spent a lifetime successfully communicating and engaging with people from all walks of life from all over the world and it was always better to seek clarification than to make assumptions. Not only could he converse on almost any topic, but he had a way of making sure his interlocutor was an appreciated and valued part of the conversation.
Just before he passed, he asked, “What should I do with these last few moments of my life?” It was suggested that he count his blessings because he had so many blessings to count. “That’s a good point,” he said. “A very good point.”
Brigadier General Charles Robert Kemble, PhD – August 17, 1925 – July 22, 2024
Bob is survived by his children Chris, Keith, Cyndy, Geoff and Carol. His extended family includes sixteen grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.
