Published on Show Me Mizzou Dec. 17, 2025
Story by Jon Hadusek, BJ ’12
In the winter of 1962, a young Jim Walsh, MA ’59, headed west in search of a career with $100 in his pocket and a degree in economics from Mizzou, He didn’t imagine he would ever return to the place he was leaving behind.
“I headed out to Highway 40 — that’s I-70 now — and I hitchhiked to Denver,” the St. Louis native, now 89, recalls.
As it was for Jack Kerouac in On the Road, Denver was a brief stop for Walsh on the way to San Francisco and a job as a Johnson & Johnson sales rep. Soon after arriving, he began teaching at Gavilan College in Santa Clara County, where he kept one foot in academia while building a business career. It was the first stretch of a journey that would eventually bend back toward Mizzou.
He kept that balance for decades. Even after stepping back from the business world, he kept teaching, a habit that would become the quiet thread leading to Mizzou in fall 2025 as an adjunct at the Trulaske College of Business alongside his wife, Christine Markussen.
They met in Atlanta in the mid-’80s, and their first date unfolded at a horse barn. “You can’t hide anything on horseback,” he jokes, remembering how naturally she rode. She remembers it the same way. “It was love at first sight,” she said. “We just took off.”
They’ve been together ever since and have built lives shaped by work, teaching and travel. Markussen’s career has combined decades as a corporate attorney and educator. Together they have visited more than 100 countries and lived in New York City, Poland and China. All that motion made their autumn in Columbia extra meaningful.
During the fall semester, Walsh taught human resources management and Markussen taught human resources and business law. Walsh says Columbia “hasn’t changed much” and that he was glad to be back, if only for the semester. “It’s a wonderful city, and the people in Missouri are so kind. They’ll hold the door for you.”
In December, they returned to their home in Santa Barbara, Calif. Both will teach remote classes at Trulaske College in the spring while pursuing other professorships, as they always have.
The pace may seem a lot, considering Walsh is pushing 90 years old, but he remains driven. On those rare days off during the semester, he took practice flights at Columbia Regional Airport. He made small landings in the place he first left on foot and hitchhikes, drawing on more than seven decades as a pilot.
“Discipline is key,” he says when asked how he manages to do it all.
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