Distinguished Teaching Fellow Rob Chandra passed away in October. The Rob Chandra Memorial Fund for Teaching Excellence (haas.org/chandra-fund) has been established in his memory.
Chandra, 53, was founder of Avid Park Ventures, a longtime partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and a repeat honoree on Forbes’s Midas List of top venture investors. As a faculty member since 2013, Chandra taught undergraduate and MBA courses on entrepreneurship and venture capital.
Chandra twice won the Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching. Last year, Poets & Quants named him as a top 50 undergraduate professor.
Entrepreneurship Prof. Toby Stuart said Chandra combined an extraordinarily successful career in venture capital with a deep love of teaching that inspired his students.
“Rob was the most admired and the most impactful teacher on our campus. His passing is an enormous loss to the Haas community,” he said.
Chandra was involved with more than 25 early stage investments that went public or were acquired by public companies. He also chaired the board of the Berkeley Endowment Management Company, a subsidiary of the UC Berkeley Foundation.
In Memoriam
William Law, BS 41
William Hawkins, BS 44
Markee Biaggi, BS 47, MBA 49
Grant Powell, BS 47
James Moose, BS 48
Walter Eiler, BS 49
Gus Petris, BS 50
Leo Jarvis, BS 51
Gene Wilken, BS 51
Joseph Steuer, BS 52
Carol Williams, BS 52
Benjamin Warwick, BS 53
Donald Denton, BS 54
William Johnson, BS 54
Louis Benasso, BS 55
Eugene Clahan, BS 55
Richard Elson, BS 55
Eugene Wilson, BS 55
Robert Huntsman, BS 56
Richard Ochsner, BS 57
Donald Bull, BS 59
Stephen Keller, BS 59
James Hughes, BS 60
Larry Mattal, BS 61
John Giumarra, BS 62
Melville Marx, BS 62
Jerome Turner, MBA 62
Robert Petersen, BS 63
Kenneth Rosenberg, MBA 64
Harold Hanson, MBA 65
Jerre Sears, MBA 65
Annette Kolodny, MS 66
Jerry Sacchi, BS 66
John McFarland, BS 68
Mark Simkin, MBA 68, PHD 72
Isom Beard, BS 69
James Tucker, MBA 70
David Hill, MBA 72
Martin Bravo, MBA 74
Anita Eblé, MBA 77
Judith Beattie, MBA 79
Barrie Fiske, BS 83
Stayton Chock, MBA 85
Ellen Boucher, MBA 99
Robert Ellsworth, Friend
Carl Klenk, Friend
William Lee, Friend
Hans Rausing, Friend
William Wilson, Friend