John Morgridge

John P. Morgridge (born 1933) is an American businessman who was the CEO and chairman of the board of Cisco Systems. Early life and education Morgridge was born to L. D. Morgridge and Ruth Gordon Morgridge, who were both teachers and church members. He has one brother, Dean L. Morgridge, and one sister, Barbara Morgridge. He grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, where he attended Wauwatosa East High School. He worked part-time at jobs such as washing equipment in a sweet pea cannery, digging stone at the quarry in Lannon, washing walls in Milwaukee's Pabst Brewery, doing road construction on Highway 64, and working as a railroad brakeman. In 1955, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and in 1957, he earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Career After school, he worked for Stratus Computer and Honeywell Information Systems before serving as president and chief operating officer of GRiD Systems. He joined Cisco in 1988, then a four-year-old company with 34 employees, as its second chief executive officer and chairman of the board. He was replaced by John Chambers as CEO in 1995 and as chairman in 2006. At his retirement in 2006, Cisco had 50,000 employees in 77 countries. Philanthropy In 2010, Morgridge and his wife donated $175 million to create the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars, an endowment which will provide grants to low-income students attending one of Wisconsin’s public colleges or universities. Morgridge Family Foundation donated funds to Immanuel Lutheran School, Mount Olive Lutheran Church, and to several educational and volunteering organizations.