HWS News
11 September 2024 • Alums Thinking About the Future: Brad Spring '88 Gives Back to HWS Sciences By Andrew Wickenden '09
In recognition of the lasting impact of his education, Brad Spring ’88 establishes an endowed scholarship and summer science support for future generations of HWS students.
“I always saw education as an investment — your degree is like owning stock and you always want to see it appreciate,” says Brad Spring ’88.
Over the past 35-plus years, Brad has seen the value of his education increase as “the quality of the education that [today’s students] get from HWS has increased too,” he says, citing the variety of courses, “the immersive learning, the overseas study and obviously the faculty.”
To help an HWS education continue increasing in value, Brad recently committed a $150,000 gift over the next five years, establishing the Bradford M. Spring ’88 Endowed Scholarship and supporting both the Annual Fund and Summer Science research.
Currently the Global Head of Regulatory Policy and Intelligence at Roche Diagnostics, Brad has had a distinguished career in the life sciences and medical technology field, which has taken him around the world. After graduating with his degree in biology, he initially worked as a sales representative for Eastman Kodak, leveraging his science background selling clinical chemistry analyzers. He later joined Becton Dickinson, where he worked in various departments in the U.S. and Asia, including R&D program management, strategic marketing, and regulatory oversight for life sciences and interventional medicine, managing product approvals with agencies such as the FDA and its international counterparts.
Looking back on his time at HWS, Brad says his broad, liberal arts education has been vitally “important to my success in business, going far beyond my biology courses.” From conducting research to working closely with professors to studying the breadth of the liberal arts — expository writing, American literature, archaeology, Italian Renaissance art and German language — his education instilled the importance of building sincere relationships and thinking critically.
He sees his support for his alma mater as an investment in these areas where HWS excels. Whether by “giving money or volunteering time, it’s really about giving other folks a chance to experience what I experienced,” he says.
As Brad and his team at Roche strategize ways to become more organizationally savvy — “how to navigate a complex organization, understand what drives people and what people’s needs are” — he notes the challenges of interdisciplinary, cross-functional, global thinking, “but I think we need more of that,” he says.
Fostering those skills in today’s students is a matter of “thinking about the future,” he explains. “You have to have the top professors and top facilities to really attract the right talent. And once you’ve attracted that talent, you don’t want the financials to prevent them from coming. You know that when you bring them on board, they are really going to make a contribution, to their education as well other students and to the HWS community as whole. Therefore, you don’t want there to be a barrier. If you can reduce or eliminate that barrier, then I think you’re going to attract even more talent.”
Top: The photo above features Marcella Venettozzi ’25, Professor of Biology Patricia Mowery and Delaney Williams ’26 working in the lab.
