Don McCubbrey
Biography at a Glance
Don McCubbrey sought a new adventure when he retired in 1983 as a partner at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in his hometown of Detroit. He had managed information systems consulting engagements for companies throughout North America, South America and Europe. Returning from Latin America in 1983, where he ran the firm’s consulting practice in five countries, McCubbrey was encouraged by a friend, the director of the School of Accountancy at Daniels, to consider academia.
“Daniels was adding experienced industry people to the faculty as it ramped up its information systems curriculum, which was intriguing,” he recalled. “I came to Denver for the interview and there were snow-capped mountain vistas and it was 65 degrees in January. I thought, ‘I could do this.’”
So he did. In 1984, McCubbrey joined Daniels as a senior lecturer and was later promoted to clinical professor. He was the founding chair of the Department of Management Information Systems (1984-2001) and helped establish the MBA e-commerce concentration in 2000. Along the way, he received an MS from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and a PhD in information systems from the University of Maribor in Slovenia.
At Daniels and DU, McCubbrey was an avid researcher and respected leader. He served as director of the Center for the Study of Electronic Commerce, a research hub for DU and collaborating companies, and president of the DU Faculty Senate from 2010 to 2012.
Outside Daniels, McCubbrey was director of the Colorado Advanced Software Institute from 1991 to 1995 and an executive board member of the Global e-Management Consortium, an international network of business schools. He was associate editor for several journals, including “Communications of the Association for Information Systems,” “Journal of Strategic Information Systems” and “International Information Systems.”
McCubbrey’s teaching and research focused on e-commerce and strategic uses of information technology. He authored many articles and case studies in journals such as “Information Technology” and “People and Management Information Systems Quarterly.” He is the coauthor of two textbooks, “Management Information Systems for the Information Age” and “Foundations of Business Systems.”
One endeavor for which McCubbrey is well known is the Global Text Project, which he co-founded in 2006. The project develops free, open-content e-textbooks, targeting students in developing economies. “Our goal was to make textbooks available to students who cannot otherwise afford them,” he said. The Global Text library has more than 100 titles.
Over the years, McCubbrey has earned many accolades. In 1999, he received the Daniels Award for Excellence, Professor of the Year. In 2002, he received the Bob Newman Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Technology Community, and his effort to co-found the Colorado Technology Association earned a gubernatorial proclamation naming May 23, 2002 Professor Don McCubbrey Day.