The Connection that Started Everything: Ken Freeman ’72

A Bucknell connection launched Ken Freeman’s career. His legacy will help thousands of Bucknell students launch theirs, today and in the future.

In the spring of 1972, Freeman was a senior management major with a stellar academic record but a serious obstacle to his career aspirations: With the Vietnam War ongoing, he had a commitment to serve in the National Guard after graduation, meaning “six months of active duty at a time I couldn’t precisely indicate to an employer.”

A chance meeting with a Bucknell trustee changed that trajectory. Freeman was invited to speak at a board meeting with other graduating seniors, where he revealed his situation. Campbell Rutledge Jr., a trustee of the University who worked for Corning Glass Works, was impressed by Freeman’s academic achievements and invited him to a local watering hole afterward.

“At the end of the conversation, Cam said to me, ‘Ken, your search for a job is over. You will have a choice of jobs at Corning Glass,’ ” Freeman recalls. “And the rest was history. It was the beginning of a wonderful career.”

That career would include two decades at Corning Inc., a term as the first chairman and CEO of Quest Diagnostics, a leadership role at global investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and eight years as dean of the Questrom School of Business at Boston University.

Freeman has since repaid the gift Rutledge offered him many times over. In addition to serving 18 years on Bucknell’s Board of Trustees and as chair from 2009 to 2018, Freeman led the Executive Committee and the Campaign Organizing Group for WE DO, Bucknell’s last fundraising campaign. In 2018, a transformational naming gift from Freeman and his wife, Janice, established the Freeman College of Management. The same year, he was honored with the Stephen W. Taylor Medal for his extraordinary service to Bucknell.

His most recent gifts to Bucknell speak to the moment that gave Freeman his start. When Freeman College graduates faced new challenges driven by AI and a shifting employment landscape in 2026, Freeman stepped in to support the hiring of two new “career search accelerators” to offer seniors enhanced one-to-one support in securing employment, before or after graduation. Later the same year, he endowed a new Freeman Family Associate Vice President and Director of the Center for Career Advancement to help further prepare students to thrive in meaningful careers and lives of purpose, beginning in their first weeks on campus.

Through this support, Freeman is helping Bucknell to meet students where they are with help that fits their unique situation — just as Rutledge offered him.