Creative Capital

TEN

THE FIRST HOME RUN

(1962–1967)

“I AM THE ONE they talk about,” proclaimed General Doriot, striding dramatically into a classroom full of women in the beginning of 1962. After the war, the General inaugurated a new lecture in his Manufacturing class, one that he asked only the fiancées and wives of his students to attend—perhaps the most striking example of his unorthodox teaching style. To Doriot, the point of the lecture was to explain the purpose of his course and to instruct the spouses in the proper habits and manners that a businessman and his wife should follow. “Everybody was sort of a bit petrified of him,” says Molly Hoagland, Ralph Hoagland’s wife, who attended the lecture in 1962. “He commanded their attention in a way nobody else ...