C. Carl Pegels 1933 – 2025

Author of the Biographies for Notable Dutch Americans

When Dr. Carl Pegels retired as a management professor, he turned his research to prominent Dutch-Americans.  His profiles now number over 300. The New Netherland Institute is grateful to Professor Pegels for providing these biographies. In appreciation, NNI awarded him the Alice P. Kenney Memorial Award in 2009.

Professor Pegels passed away on June 29, 2025.  You can read his obituary here.  We thank him for all of the research he did to create these biographies. At this time, we are no longer updating Dr. Pegels’ biography pages.

About Dr. Pegel – Academic and Scholar

It is somewhat self-assuming to write an autobiographical profile and then include it in a collection of profiles of Prominent Dutch Americans. From the beginning of this biography project I never considered myself a member of this exclusive group, and I still don’t. The decision to write a brief biography of myself was motivated by the thought that readers of the biographical profiles are entitled to find out a little bit more about the author and his background. So here it is.

Carl Pegels spent 39 years of his academic career at the University at Buffalo’s School of Management, teaching and researching such subjects as Operations Management, Strategic Management, and Information Systems Management. For most of that time, the university was known as the State University of New York at Buffalo, or SUNY/Buffalo. He joined the university as an assistant professor in 1966 and ended his career as a Professor of Management, also serving as Chairman of the Department of Management Science and Systems and as Associate Dean of the School of Management. During that time he published over 80 refereed academic papers and 18 books on management-related subjects, including three best sellers.

During the early years of his tenure he was actively involved in research in managing blood banks and healthcare systems, and wrote a number of papers and books on the management of those systems. He was also actively involved in the early years of the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) movement in Buffalo and became the co-founder of Independent Health, now the largest health insurer in Western New York.

In the 1980s he became involved in the management education of Chinese managers and played a key role in the development and operation of the first American MBA program in China. He spent the equivalent of about a year in China during the 1980s and 1990s developing and teaching in those programs.

Following his retirement from academia, Pegels became actively involved in research on prominent Dutch Americans. Initially he expected to find only a few dozen individuals, write up biographical profiles, and call it done. But as he became more involved in the subject, he kept discovering increasing numbers of Dutch Americans who qualified to be included. The result is a collection that grew to more than 250–300 profiles, published in three books and over a dozen articles, largely in publications focusing on a Dutch American audience. In his later years he also wrote books on history, politics, and religion.

Pegels was born in the Netherlands in 1933. He immigrated with his family to Canada in 1948. From 1955 to 1962 he worked at Ford Motor Company as an industrial engineer and product engineer, earning his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Detroit Institute of Technology. In 1962 he moved to the United States to pursue graduate work in Management at Purdue University, where he earned his MS in 1963 and his PhD in 1966. He became an American citizen in 1969. After completing his graduate work, he joined the faculty at what is now known as the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York system. He retired in 2006 as Professor Emeritus.

A man of remarkable energy, Pegels was also well known in Buffalo’s running community. He completed over 250 marathons, including more than 40 ultramarathons—some as long as 100 miles—and was named Runner of the Year by the Buffalo News five times in his age group. In 2002 he completed his quest to run at least one marathon in every state.

He was married to Patricia Pegels, of Marana, Arizona, and had two children and five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Although he is a Dutch native, at one time he was a Canadian citizen and a British subject, and later became an American citizen in 1969.  He divided his time between Arizona and his cherished summer home in Chautauqua, NY.

 

Get Dr. Pegels’ books

Prominent Dutch-American Entrepreneurs
(paperback);

Dutch-American Achievers: Arts, Sciences and Sports
(for Kindle);

Dutch-American Achievers: Government, Military, History and Philosophy
(for Kindle).

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