Legacy in Motion

Former Dean Charlie Moyer Reflects on the Lessons, Risks and Relationships That Shaped the Modern College of Business

R. Charles “Charlie” Moyer loves to run. Steadily, in the same way he has approached much of his life. One foot in front of the other, always moving forward. 

For more than 50 years, his wife, Sally, has been beside him for many of those runs – a quiet ritual that mirrors how Moyer has built both his life and his career: patiently, consistently and with momentum. 

Momentum, the former dean would tell his students, is everything.

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At the University of Louisville College of Business, that philosophy stands in the atrium. Students pass it every day without always realizing the story behind it – an intricately painted horse statue featuring currencies from across the globe that Moyer brought to the college and nicknamed Mr. Cash Flow. The name began as a joke about finance. But to Moyer, the idea carried a deeper meaning.

Businesses need cash flow to survive, he would say. Universities need something similar – ideas flowing, opportunities moving and people advancing. 

“If things stop moving,” he liked to tell students, “That’s when you’re in trouble.” 

From 2005 to 2026, Moyer helped propel the college forward, first as dean and later as a professor of finance. As dean, he transformed the Master of Business Administration program, strengthened the college’s research mission and expanded career opportunities for students. Now, as he celebrates his retirement, his influence continues to shape the institution. 

The philosophy that would come to define Moyer’s leadership – rooted in momentum, opportunity and fairness – did not begin in a dean’s office. It began decades earlier, when a working-class kid from Reading, Pennsylvania, arrived at Howard University and quickly discovered that the world was larger and more complicated than he had imagined. 

Unexpected Opportunity

Growing up in Reading, an industrial town in a region known for its Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, Moyer and his brother Bob were raised in a family of predominantly German ancestry. The first in their family to attend college, the brothers attended Reading High School, where Moyer learned about Howard University, widely considered one of the premier historically Black universities in the United States. “My parents didn’t have the money for college,” he explained. “They were encouraging, but there really wasn’t money.” 

One morning, during the school’s announcements, students were told that recruiters from Howard were on campus interviewing prospective applicants and offering 40 competitive four-year, full-ride scholarships. “I interviewed and took their test and didn’t think a whole lot more of it,” Moyer said. “A month or two later, I got a letter saying, ‘Congratulations, you’ve been awarded a full four-year scholarship at Howard University.’” 

It wasn’t until Moyer arrived on campus as a first-year student in 1963 – just three weeks after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech – that he began to fully grasp the cultural differences awaiting him at Howard. “It was a real eye-opener,” he admitted. “I always thought of myself as pretty open and fair-minded, but I realized I probably wasn’t as open and fair-minded as I thought I was. I learned an awful lot.” 

The experience was also academically humbling. During his first year in the university’s honors program, Moyer found himself surrounded by exceptionally talented classmates who had also earned competitive scholarships. “I got in classes with people that had these full scholarships – we went through honors freshman year,” he explained. “We took almost all of our classes together, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’m not the smartest guy in the room,’ and I was used to being just about the smartest guy.”

Debating Direction

The following year, Moyer met the man who would help shape him into the leader he would become: Howard professor and debate coach Leroy Giles. At the time, Moyer had a profound fear of public speaking and struggled to speak in front of groups. “If I had to do an oral report,” he recalled, “I’d lay awake the whole night long. My hands and feet would sweat and my voice would crack. I was a wreck in front of a crowd.” One day, Giles encouraged him to join the debate team. Moyer’s reaction was immediate. “I said, ‘Leroy, are you crazy? Have you seen me?’ He said, ‘That’s why you should go out for the debate team.’” 

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Moyer eventually decided to push through his fear and give debate a try. The experience proved transformative, sharpening his public speaking skills and allowing him to develop the confidence and willingness to take risks that would later define his leadership style. His growth as a speaker and thinker eventually led him to compete against the British National Debate Championship team in debates broadcast on educational television stations in Washington and New York. Reflecting on Giles’ influence years later, Moyer said simply, “He changed my life.” 

Moyer’s experience at Howard and the relationships he built there, including his mentorship with Giles and his friendship with fellow dormitory counselor Gloster Current, left a lasting mark on his life. In recognition of the scholarship that brought him to Howard, Moyer and his wife, Sally, later established the Leroy Giles Debate Scholarship Fund, which continues to support students at the university today. The lessons Moyer carried from Howard about fairness, confidence and the importance of stepping forward when opportunity appears would follow him throughout the rest of his career. They would also shape the kind of leader he would eventually become.

Changing Course

Upon earning bachelor’s degrees in both economics and German, Moyer was encouraged by one of his marketing professors to pursue an MBA degree. “I didn’t even know what an MBA was,” Moyer admitted. He applied to several institutions, but after receiving a full scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, he decided to pursue both his MBA and later his PhD in economics and finance there. 

While completing his doctoral work at Pittsburgh, Moyer discovered a passion he had never expected: teaching. “I taught a class called the Evolution of Business...which was really a fascinating class to teach, and I had a good time doing it. I thought, ‘This is fun.’ I just enjoyed being in the classroom, and then I went down to Houston and kept doing the same thing.” 

Moyer went on to teach at several universities, including the University of Houston, Lehigh University, the University of New Mexico and Texas Tech University before eventually accepting an endowed chair position at Wake Forest University. It was there that an unexpected opportunity would shift his career toward leadership. “I would see the president at lunchtime sometimes, because I’d swim sometimes and he had a locker [near mine],” Moyer said. “He said to me, ‘Charlie, why don’t you just be my dean?’” 

Within only two months of stepping into the role, Moyer had already begun reshaping the business school’s direction. Passing a new strategic plan and launching a new professional MBA program in Charlotte, North Carolina – a city that at the time had no top-ranked university of its own – resulted not only in a record number of enrollments but also in great financial success for the university. The groundbreaking decision greatly boosted not only Wake Forest’s revenue but also its rankings. After finally topping the MBA program rankings of its rival, Vanderbilt University, “I said, ‘I quit. Success. I’m going back to the good life of being a professor in the MBA program.‘”

After transforming Wake Forest’s business school and taking a sabbatical year teaching in Germany, in 2004, Moyer began considering his next challenge – a search that led him to UofL.

Dinner Decision

While Moyer initially knew little about UofL, he found himself drawn to the institution mostly because its students’ backgrounds reflected his own. “I didn’t grow up rich,” he shared. “I came from a very working-class family, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to go to a school where the typical student is more like who I was at that age?’”

After multiple interviews with university leadership he admired and respected, he would have a legendary encounter with former basketball coach Rick Pitino during his final-round interview that would encourage Moyer to take on the role of dean. “I liked [former president] Jim Ramsey and [former provost] Shirley Willihnganz a lot,” he shared. “I came out here for three interviews before I finally said yes. On the third interview, they took me out to dinner at Porcini.” Assuming he would be met with another series of questions, he was surprised when Pitino came over to their table, sat down and began talking with him about basketball, eventually offering him the opportunity to sit in on closed practices and travel occasionally with the team for away games. “Rick said to me, ‘It’s clear you’re really a huge basketball fan. If you come here, we will always have room on the plane. Anytime you want to fly with the team for an away game, just let me know.’” Admitting the encounter left him a bit star-struck, he said, “I went home, and I said to Sally, ‘I’m shallow enough to be impressed by this,’ and I made the decision to come here.” 

Bringing valuable skills from his time at both Howard and Wake Forest to his newest role, including the ability to take risks with bold ideas, the initiative to take action amidst challenging circumstances, building trust with faculty, staff and students through strong communication and always striving for fairness in decision-making, Moyer tackled the challenges in the college by “being honest and caring about the views of others” and maintaining his focus on the issues that mattered, be it in the classroom or the boardroom. “Whether you know exactly how to solve this problem or not isn’t the most important thing in the world,” he said.

Surging Changes

One of Moyer’s most important goals was the implementation of a full-time MBA program. After considering various other Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation strategies at universities across the country and through his vantage point of researching other schools’ MBA structures, he eventually conceptualized the radical idea of offering MBA students the opportunity to receive a paid internship by day, while completing their degree program in the evening. Furthermore, at that time, Moyer brought on current Senior Executive Director Vernon Foster, a longtime colleague and friend. The two first met at Wake Forest, where Foster served on Moyer’s Board of Advisors and multiple other nonprofit advisory boards.

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Moyer also began connecting with members of the Louisville community, including the late Dan Ulmer, laying the groundwork for the college’s Ulmer Career Management Center to open in 2006. According to Foster, “[Moyer’s] intent was to build a stronger career center to serve all our constituents – undergrad, graduates and retirees. That’s why we have that saying, ‘Career Services for Life.’ That came out under Charlie, and he was very purposeful about creating a career center that could serve all of that.” 

Along with providing innovative hands-on learning opportunities and long-term career support for students and graduates, Moyer was committed to elevating the work already being done by the college’s faculty. “He changed us from being primarily focused on teaching to being a great teaching institution coupled with great research and research expectations, along with funding for research to elevate that game,” noted Foster. “That changes how you’re perceived in the market.” 

While Moyer’s time as dean brought significant growth, including the launch of the Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship and the construction of the Texas Roadhouse student lounge, his tenure was not without challenges. One of the most memorable moments came during the historic flood of 2009, which caused significant damage across campus – including the ground level of Frazier Hall.

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Arriving at the college that morning, Moyer quickly realized the situation was far more serious than anyone expected. “I got to the building...and all of a sudden, I looked to the doorways into the hallway out where the computer labs are. I saw water at the window level in those doorways and then BOOM – all the water in the world came in, and Mr. Cash Flow started galloping across the [Atrium] – the elevator shafts were full of water.” 

Dramatic as the moment was, it became one more chapter in a period of change that ultimately left the college stronger than before. In the years that followed, Moyer helped guide the college’s recovery while reinventing the MBA model, elevating the Ulmer Career Center, building stronger industry partnerships that broadened career opportunities for students and strengthening its research mission, positioning the college for ACC-era visibility. By the time he stepped away from the dean’s role in 2013, the College of Business had become very different from what it had been when he arrived – not only rebuilt, but reimagined.

Maintaining Momentum

While Moyer’s legacy can be seen across the college, the true impact of his leadership is found in the stories faculty and staff were more than willing to share – stories of a man who believed in giving. He created opportunities for students, faculty and staff to succeed while giving back his time and resources to philanthropic endeavors and organizations important to him and his wife. “A lot of people don’t realize how humble and caring he is,” Foster shared, “about students and their outcomes, and for the faculty and staff.” 

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Moyer’s caring nature extended to actively seeking ways to bring on board and provide his faculty and staff with a platform to build their vision and shine. Current Assistant Dean of Thought Leadership & Civic Engagement Nat Irvin, who had previously worked with Moyer at Wake Forest, was encouraged by Moyer to come to UofL to continue doing what he does best: implement futuristic, forward-thinking programs such as Thrivals. “He started recruiting me immediately,” shared Irvin. “He’s let me develop my own programs. I’ve had so many opportunities to do things that I’ve cared about for other people as a result of Charlie,” he explained. 

Current Dean Amy Henley echoed the impact of Moyer’s innovative and insightful changes and the lasting, positive impact those decisions have had on the college, paving the way for a bright future as technology continues to evolve and programs adapt to new challenges. “The college would not be where it is – we wouldn’t have the research endeavors that we have, we wouldn’t have the graduate programs – he completely overhauled the graduate model,” she explained. “I’m the lucky one who gets to sit in the seat now and execute many of his visions. At the core of who he was, as a dean, was looking out for students. If I can continue that legacy, I’ll be very lucky.” 

Beyond the Finish Line

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Although Moyer has retired, he has no plans to slow down anytime soon. He and his wife, Sally, continue to run together – an activity that has long been woven into their family life. “She’s my best friend ever,” Moyer said. “We’ve been married for 53 years.” He also remains committed to giving back through service and leadership.

Today, Moyer continues to serve on the Board of Regents for Kentucky State University, a role that reflects the lasting influence of his undergraduate experience at Howard. “We have a really strong, diverse board,” he said. “Andy Beshear asked me if I would be on the board. He knew about my Howard connection, and I still have this obligation to HBCUs from my experience...so I have a lot to do.” 

For someone who built his career around creating opportunity, strengthening institutions and helping others move forward, the work is far from finished. And at the University of Louisville College of Business – where a horse in the atrium still bears the nickname Mr. Cash Flow – the momentum he set in motion continues.

About the UofL College of Business:

Founded in 1953, the UofL College of Business fosters intellectual and economic vitality in our city, region and the global business landscape. Our academic programs, research, community outreach initiatives and commitment to student success inspire lives and businesses to flourish through entrepreneurship, innovation, critical thinking, diversity and the power of people.  

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