| LLOYD E. WORNER AWARD RECIPIENT 2007 |
 Van Skilling '55
When Van Skilling addressed the class of 2007 at graduation ceremonies earlier this year, he passed on the words of the lateYogi Berra: “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
The beauty of that advice, at once brilliant and nonsensical, isn’t lost on Van. He says his connection to Colorado College is genetic – his grandfather was a trustee and his mother and two aunts enrolled here. He met his wife at CC, and both of their children graduated from here. Van graduated from Colorado College in 1955 with a degree in zoology, but after that, he encountered many forks in the road, and he took them.
Van had always thought he wanted to follow his years at CC with medical school, but his plans changed during the Korean War. “It was the tail end of the war and I enlisted in the U.S. Navy and became a Naval Intelligence Officer,” he says. After he left the Navy, Van took a chance on a business that he says jokingly “didn’t do much for my intellegence.”
He started a boat building company in Denver, making fiberglass boats. “I describe that time as my M.B.A. in hard knocks, where I learned about boats and business.”
Van left boat-building behind him and after several other forks, started working at TRW, Inc., staying there 26 years. He traveled around the world, and ended up as executive vice president in charge of the information sector. In 1996, Van helped form Experian, where he served as Chief Executive Officer until 1999.
Today, he is officially retired, but his family teases him about his active professional life, saying he “flunked retirement.” He serves on the board of five publicly traded companies as well as the Colorado College board of trustees, helps start-up businesses, and travels. He also returns to CC each year to teach a block 2 class in business policy and strategy. He says teaching “is the most fun thing I do all year.”
Van believes his education at Colorado College helped him find success in his business and personal life. “I have been really lucky and have had a lot of different opportunities to do a lot of different things,” he says. “CC allowed me to learn how to learn.”
Van and his wife BJ ’58 have homes in Saratoga, WY, and in Palm Desert, CA. They have two children, Kimberly ’79 and Mark ’82, and five grandchildren.
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