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Charles R. (Chuck) Goeldner: a profile of service and contribution to the tourism research community

It is my honour and privilege to have been asked to write this profile of Charles R. (Chuck) Goeldner. Over the past 30 years, Chuck has fundamentally altered and helped shape my career, creating for me untold opportunities and experiences. He has done the same for countless others. The following is both an attempt to profile his many contributions to tourism research and a small effort to say “Thank You!” to my friend and mentor. As with most academic profiles, I could use the following space to talk about the Chuck’s service to our field. Table 1 lists just a few of the professional service responsibilities he accepted and continues to accept. While Chuck is perhaps best known as the founding editor of the Journal of Travel Research (JTR), Table 2 provides a list of other journal editorial, publisher, and contributor contributions he has made to our scholarship. Combined, these two tables reflect a career of dedicated service and contribution; suffice it to say, it is hard to imagine another tourism academic who has given so freely, broadly, and willingly of his time to our benefit. I could also use this space to talk about the diversity of accolades, recognitions, and honours bestowed on him by both the tourism academic field and the tourism industry. Table 3 provides a bit of those data. Still, the range and diversity of honours inadequately reflect his impact on our field. Finally, I could talk facts; how this Iowa farm boy completed his BA, MA, and PhD at the University of Iowa, served the US Army as a training officer in Germany, served as a Marketing Professor and Business Research Center Director at California State University, Northridge, for eight years, then joined the Marketing faculty in the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado (CU), Boulder, where, over the years, he served as a Professor, Journal Editor and Publisher, Chair of the Marketing Division, Director of the Business Research Division, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, and Executive Assistant to the Dean and where today he continues to serve as a Professor Emeritus. I could even talk about the hundreds of articles and reports he published over the years and, of course, THE BOOK. For as long as I have known Chuck, he has been working on THE BOOK and its 12th, soon to be 13th, editions. None of these data points talk about the essence of Chuck and his many contributions to our field; none would be a full and complete profile. Following are six short “stories” which I hope will help do that. In truth, they are not about his contributions, but rather about his character, which is, as it is for each of us, the foundation of his contributions and the best measure of his true impact on each of us and on our field.