Alumni of the Year Award
Kimberly West Eck, Comm ’13 and Robert J. Eck, Arts ’80
Chenequa, Wis.
Some experiences don’t announce their significance in the moment. Instead, they shape your perspective and values over time, only revealing their full impact years later. For Kimberly West Eck and Robert Eck, their time at Marquette University was one of those experiences.
At first glance, Kim’s and Bob’s Marquette journeys look very different. Bob’s followed a more traditional path, launching a global business career and decades of leadership. Kim’s took an unexpected detour, marked by an interruption that inspired her return many years later. What unites their stories is a shared belief that the full influence of a Marquette education often emerges long after graduation to shape how alumni choose to serve others.
Bob remembers the moment he knew Marquette was different. As a prospective student, he met with George Reedy, then dean of the journalism school and former press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson. What stuck with Bob was the way he was treated.
“It was just him and me, talking for at least 30 minutes,” Bob recalls. “That notion of treating people as equals stayed with me.”
The idea that people grow into responsibility when they’re listened to and respected became a throughline in Bob’s life and career. As CEO of Anixter International from 2008 to 2018, and later as chair of the Marquette University Board of Trustees from 2020 to 2023, Bob demonstrated leadership grounded in accountability, care and dignity.
“Marquette’s impact is hard to appreciate while you’re there,” Bob says. “You’re so caught up in classes that you don’t notice what’s changing inside you. But the experience manifests itself later and causes you to be a person for others.”
That instinct has shaped Bob’s commitment to leadership and philanthropy through community-based initiatives focused on education, mental health research and poverty alleviation.
Kim’s Marquette story is one of determination and perseverance. She entered Marquette in 1976 and was on track to graduate in December 1980. On the night before finals of her last semester, she suffered an epileptic seizure. She returned home to seek medical care and left Marquette without the degree she had worked so diligently toward.
Their time at Marquette also brought them together. After attending rival Catholic grade schools in Chicago’s west suburbs and some helpful parental connections (Kim’s dad treated Bob’s broken ankle in high school; Bob’s mom spotted Kim’s family during parent orientation at Marquette), the two officially met junior year in The Letters of St. Paul class and later married.
Life moved forward, and Kim built a successful career in advertising, working in account services at several Chicago agencies before stepping away from full-time work to raise two sons. But Marquette never stopped calling. “Around 2010, I knew I had to finish my degree, no matter how I did it,” Kim says.
In 2011, she applied for readmission and returned to campus in 2012 as a full-time student in the Diederich College of Communication. Sitting among classmates who were decades younger than her deepened Kim’s empathy and appreciation for students navigating their own challenges.
Kim earned her degree in May 2013 and almost immediately looked for ways to give back. Marquette Mentors became a natural extension of her own journey. Since 2014, she has been deeply involved in the program, serving as a mentor, advocate and eventual Mentor-in-Residence. As a gifted connector with boundless enthusiasm, Kim has poured herself into supporting students and expanding the program’s reach.
Over time, Kim’s and Bob’s individual commitments converged into a shared philanthropic vision. Through the Eck Family Foundation, they’ve supported causes ranging from Marquette University to the American and International Red Cross, CARE and Habitat for Humanity. Most recently, they’ve supported Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe College in Hayward, Wisconsin, helping establish scholarships for the trade school to serve Native and non-Native students in a region facing systemic underinvestment.
“The needs are great, and the services are limited,” Bob says. “It has been gratifying to see how much can be accomplished with limited resources.”
Ask Kim and Bob how they live the Marquette mission of excellence, faith, leadership and service, and neither hesitates: “When you attend Marquette, it becomes second nature,” Kim says. For Bob, it’s about approaching the world “with an open mind, an open heart and without judgment.”
The impact of a Marquette education may not always be evident in the moment, but for Kim and Bob, the experience has always shimmered beneath the surface. It emerges again and again in their commitment to being people for others.
