If you're looking for Dr. Marshal Wright outside of class, you may find him on the
basketball or tennis court. Several times a week since 1978, he's gathered in the
gym with friends for a pick-up basketball game. Tennis has been his passion since
being part of the ORU tennis team that ranked tenth in the nation.
The son of missionaries, Marshal was born in India where his dad served as president
of the Southeast Asia Bible Institute and later the Tamilnadu Bible Institute. He
has returned to India on a tennis missions trip in the 1980s and just recently again,
ministering to persecuted Christians in summer 2009. Traveling to exotic destinations
and photographing the people and places he visits is something else Dr. Wright enjoys,
and he and his wife Annmarie have visited England, Scotland, South Africa and Lithuania
where he taught business classes and traveled.
Though he has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in business education, he originally
set out to be a lawyer and earned a law degree from Regent University. For several
years, he practiced law in San Diego and in Tulsa emphasizing the areas of wills,
trusts, estate and gift taxation, and corporate and nonprofit law, but business and
specifically teaching were his true calling, so he returned to ORU as a professor
in 1995. Recently, he served as interim dean for the School of Business, but has loved
returning to focusing full-time on his passion - the students in the classroom -
as well as serving as graduate chair. He continues to be energized by teaching classes
in Strategic Management, Not-for-Profit Administration, Leadership, Estate and Gift
Taxation, and Organizational Dynamics.
In 2009, Regent University named Dr. Wright the outstanding alumnus of the year for
the School of Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship. He has also been honored as
the recipient of the prestigious ACBSP Region Six Teaching Excellence award presented
by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs.
Of all the things Dr. Wright likes about ORU, he says that perhaps the greatest is
its purpose driven approach to life and career. "As Paul wrote to Christians in Romans
12:2, we encourage our students to ‘be transformed by the renewing of your minds.'
It's something that will keep you focused and on track wherever life takes you."
