PASSINGS
James McNeill Stancill, 76, a USC Marshall School of Business professor who taught more than a third of the university’s MBA students during his 43-year career, died of pulmonary fibrosis June 17 at his home in Pasadena, USC announced.
After joining USC in 1964, he became a specialist in doing business in China and pioneered study in the field now known as entrepreneurial finance.
“Cash flow is more important than your mother” was one of his signature truisms, which he might drop into a lecture about the financial needs of small and mid-size businesses.
He outlined his cash-flow philosophy in the textbook “Entrepreneurial Finance for New and Emerging Business” (2004). His cash-flow formula also would pop up on sweat shirts that students made for him.
Born in 1932 in Orange, N.J., Stancill lived in Philadelphia and Baltimore before graduating from high school in Charleston, S.C. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at George Washington University. After earning a doctorate in finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, he moved to Pasadena and joined USC. When he retired, a former student endowed a chair in business administration in Stancill’s name
An ardent adventurer, Stancill had traveled to more than 110 countries, making many trips with his wife, Catherine, and three daughters.
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