DICK & JOHN HOLLAND
This much is clear: Hollands make headlines. A longtime Omaha family, the Hollands have deep ties to UNO. Father Lewis Holland in 1924 was an assembly speaker at the university and four of his children would earn UNO degrees: William (1938), John (1942), Jean (1946) and Dick (1948). John and Dick, though, would springboard those degrees to greatness.
John Holland, a leading career development researcher and professor at Johns Hopkins University, was one of the earliest and major theorists in the area of career development. His Self-Directed Search, an interest inventory designed to help people make career and education choices, has been used by more than 22 million people and translated into 25 languages. He was awarded the prestigious American Psychological Association award for Distinguished Contributions to Knowledge and the American Psychological Association’s Lifetime Award. Dick, meanwhile, established a long and distinguished career as an Omaha advertising agency executive. He and his wife, Mary, established the Holland Foundation and were generous supporters of UNO and elsewhere, including the Holland Performing Arts Center.