Former Walton College Achiever Adding to Lifes Work at Auburn

When Bill Hardgrave was featured in the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 2003, he didn’t have definite plans for the future. 

Hardgrave was a University of Arkansas professor and executive director of the Information Technology Research Center in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. He was content in that position and 100-percent invested in what he was doing.

“Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine that a few years later I would get a call asking if I wanted to be dean of a top-30 business school,” Hardgrave said. “That didn’t enter my mind.”

But one thing led to the next and, in 2010 — after 17 years at the UA, where he earned the endowed Edwin and Karlee Bradberry Chair in Information Systems — Hardgrave took the position at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.

He is rounding out his fourth year as dean and Wells Fargo Professor at the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business, renamed last year after a $40 million gift from a former student.

“It’s a great job, and I think we’re doing great things,” Hardgrave said of his work at Auburn.

Like before, he does not have a career map for the future.

“As long as I’m still having fun, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said. “You’ve got to let life guide you.”

That attitude has worked out well thus far for Hardgrave, originally from Clarksville. He was the first in his family to go to college and went on to get his master’s degree and then his doctorate in information systems from Oklahoma State University. 

He worked in software development before deciding to go back to school to become a professor, and much of his success as an educator has been with his work to connect the academic world and the business community.

For several years, he has been dedicated to researching and promoting the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in retail. And there has been a dramatic change in his sphere of influence since he was featured in Forty Under 40, as he has become a go-to source nationwide on the subject.

In April, he was used as the expert source for a Fortune magazine story on RFID as the saving grace for brick-and-mortar retail, and prior to that he was featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek and on CNN and PBS.

Hardgrave said his speeches in the last couple of years have reached an estimated global audience of about 25,000. He also has written seven books, had an estimated 85 articles published in academic journals and trade magazines and received several awards, including the RFID Journal Award for Special Achievement in 2012 and the Ted Williams Award from AIM Global in 2009, all related to his work with RFID. 

When asked what drives him, Hardgrave recalled something said by Doyle Williams, the dean of Walton College, when Hardgrave was a 29-year-old assistant professor.

During an open forum held by Williams, an audience member asked, seemingly in jest, “What’s the meaning of life?” to which Williams said, “To make a difference.”

That quote changed Hardgrave’s perspective, he said.

“We get to do that every day. We take the input, which are students and then produce the output, which are well-rounded great young people entering the workforce.

“We also help companies like Walmart make decisions. I can’t think of anything that would be better.”

In 2004, Hardgrave became the point-person for RFID at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., as the retailer led the way in rolling out application of the technology.

Subsequently, he founded the RFID Research Center at the UA, which relocated to Auburn earlier this year.

He still has ties to the Northwest Arkansas area, however, and that will only increase this fall, as his 18-year-old daughter Rachel will run cross country for the Razorbacks.

This will only increase the division in the family on Auburn vs. Arkansas football game days, he said. “But it’s all in good fun.”

Despite his UA history and the fact that his wife is an alum, there is no question over which team Hardgrave will cheer for. It’s Auburn all the way.