Donors

John Morgridge and Tashia Frankfurth met while attending high school in the southeastern Wisconsin suburb of Wauwatosa. Following their graduation from Wauwatosa East High School, the pair came to Madison to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They graduated in the spring of 1955, and on Aug. 13 of that year, they were married.

Tashia Morgridge earned her  bachelor’s degree from the School of Education; and in 1975, she received a master’s degree in education from Lesley College in Massachusetts. She is now retired as a special-education teacher and works as a volunteer teacher for the learning disabled. She serves on several boards, including the School of Education’s Board of Visitors, and is a past member of the University of Wisconsin Foundation Board of Directors.

John Morgridge earned a bachelor’s degree  from the School of Business, and a master’s in  business administration from Stanford University. He was honored in 1991 as a distinguished business alumnus and received an honorary doctorate degree from UW-Madison in 1994. He has served on the School of Business Board of Visitors and as an adviser to the business schools at both UW-Madison and at Stanford University, where he has served on the board of trustees. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. In addition, he has received honorary degrees from Lesley College and Northern Illinois University.

Longtime champions of UW-Madison, the Morgridges take every opportunity to extol the university’s virtues and contribute to its future. Evidence of their generosity can be seen throughout campus, from Grainger Hall to the lakefront and the Red Gym, where the Morgridge Center for Public Service is now housed. In 2004, the couple gave the university $31 million to complete and renovate the Education Building.

For their 41st wedding anniversary, the couple endowed two chairs at UW-Madison rather than exchange traditional gifts. Tashia’s gift to John was a $1.6 million chair in computer science in the College of Letters and Science, while John’s gift to Tashia was a $1.6 million chair in reading in the School of Education.

Grainger Hall’s Morgridge Auditorium is named in honor of the couple, who made the first major gift to the building fund. They also have established scholarships in the School of Education and the School of Business.

One of the Morgridge’s most recent and ambitious projects, the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars,  is focused on increasing the number of college graduates across the state.  This permanent endowment, begun with their initial gift of $175 million, provides need-based grants for high school graduates to attend Wisconsin’s public two- and four-year colleges and universities.

John is chairman emeritus of the board at Cisco Systems in San Jose, Calif. He joined the young company in 1988 as president and CEO. During his tenure as CEO, John grew the company from $5 million in sales to more than $1 billion, and from 34 employees to more than 2,260 employees. In 1990, John took Cisco public; in 1995, he was appointed chair.

In his role as chairman emeritus, John dedicates his time to Cisco’s education and government initiatives. He also teaches part-time at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and speaks regularly on entrepreneurialism and management strategies at corporations and universities around the world. In 1996, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business honored John with the Arbuckle Award.

The Morgridges are members of the UW Foundation, the Bascom Hill Society and the Wisconsin Alumni Association, and they are actively engaged in many volunteer activities for numerous nonprofit organizations. These include the Morgridge Family Foundation; Interplast, Inc.; the American Leadership Forum for Silicon Valley and the Nature Conservancy. John also is a member of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s Board of Trustees, the 21st Century Education Board and the Stanford Business School Advisory Council. Tashia serves on the national advisory board for the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University, a program that served as a model for the Morgridge Center at UW-Madison.

Residents of Portola Valley, Calif., the Morgridges are proud parents and grandparents.