Jim Thiltgen ’67
When you ask Santa Clara alums about their college experience, they’ll often reminisce about the power of community. Jim Thiltgen ’67 is no different. Sharing a dorm with a lively group of student-athletes added an enjoyable twist to his college journey.
“Attending games felt personal to me, as I knew all the players by their first names,” he says. When he later entered graduate school, he was surprised and slightly disappointed to find the athletes were “practically on a separate campus.” Originally drawn to pursuing an English major, Jim confesses that, after writing so many papers, he decided to change his major to another area of interest, sociology.
After receiving his master’s in sociology, he headed to Washington, D.C., to work in program evaluation for the Model Cities program, one of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiatives. However, Jim was soon en route to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new state office in Knoxville, Tennessee, after George Romney—then secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—assigned him to an administrative review team critiquing the very office in which he had been working.
In addition to handling affordable and low-income housing issues, Jim coordinated regional disaster relief efforts. “California may have earthquakes and wildfires, but Tennessee has tornadoes and floods,” he says.
In the days before FEMA was active, HUD’s disaster response team handled emergency response and outreach. Jim served as the state’s disaster housing placement chief. He says he blocked out his calendar from St. Patrick’s Day to Mother’s Day to be on a disaster assignment during tornado season.
Before long, the Mayor of Chattanooga decided to combine all the Great Society programs into a single city agency, and Jim was tapped to serve on the federal task force, becoming the cost allocation plan negotiator for all the local government entities that fell under Tennessee’s HUD umbrella. “Somewhere along the line, I also got married,” he jokes.
After 15 years with HUD, Jim received a call from Nashville’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority, leading him to become their director of finance, “a job for which I had no background,” Jim says, as his formal math training ended in high school.
Shortly after he was hired, he purchased Bookkeeping Made Simple and Accounting Made Simple, and “did a lot of learning on the job,” he says. Jim was later pointed to deputy executive director, a role he held until his recent retirement.
In thinking back on his college years, he reflects on the ways Santa Clara expanded his horizons and opened his mind. “It was a pretty conservative campus back in the ’60s,” he says. His professors brought in speakers and fellow faculty who were deeply involved in the causes of the time, making for a vibrant intellectual atmosphere. “In my sociology classes, I got to meet a professor from Berkeley who was one of the leaders of the free speech movement, which was kind of a shock but opened our eyes,” he says.
Another notable encounter was with the Bay Area athlete and civil rights activist Harry Edwards, who led protests for fair treatment of Black athletes, culminating in the iconic raised fists of John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics.
“When I was a senior, we had seminars with four students in it. I mean, it was really, really closeknit,” he says, “and when the class was over, you interacted with the professor and talked about what you learned, what your plans were, and really got to know everyone.” Having the experience of a smaller campus built a strong and cohesive student-focused culture, but Jim appreciates the attention faculty paid to ensuring a diversity of ideas and academic experiences.
“You can learn the academic concepts, that’s one thing, but at Santa Clara, it’s the breadth of vision and different perspectives on life, as well as the Jesuit perspective of service,” he says. “It all came together there for me and gave me the confidence to jump in and try to fix the problem or meet the need, which is definitely reflected in my career path.”
Jim’s gift, which he made through a charitable remainder trust and beneficiary designation of retirement accounts to support the College of Arts and Sciences.
Support from loyal friends like Jim help Santa Clara University advance our distinctive Jesuit education. Discover how you can create an estate gift to help SCU forge the next generation of ethical leaders by contacting the Office of Planned Giving at 408-554-2108 or giftplanning@scu.edu today.