Built on a founding conviction.
What we believe, how we work, and the people whose generosity made it possible.
The future has always belonged to the people with the best information. We exist to change who those people are.
The global economy stands at a major inflection point. Artificial intelligence is changing the way business operates more than any technology we have seen in multiple generations. Natural resources and energy costs are straining to their breaking point. The international order is reconfiguring into a new balance of power and trade flows unseen since the world wars.
The Tarkington Business Futures Institute is Cal Poly Pomona's answer: a think-and-do tank that moves at the speed of change, not the speed of peer review — producing forward-looking intelligence and delivering it to the people who need it most.
The Tarkington Business Futures Institute was made possible by a transformative gift from Alan "Al" (Business Administration '64) and Stephanie "Steve" Tarkington of Del Mar, California.
Al Tarkington was a Cal Poly Pomona alumnus, public servant, former mayor of Del Mar, and Ironman triathlete whose belief in the power of business education to anticipate and shape the future is at the heart of this Institute's mission. He passed away in March 2024 after a five-year battle with ALS.
Stephanie Tarkington is a CSU Los Angeles alumna who built a distinguished career in education with a focus on special education and school leadership. At the March 2026 naming ceremony, she reflected on what this gift means:
"Al would be really proud to have the Tarkington name used to represent all the reasons that Cal Poly Pomona School of Business allowed him to grow in the direction that made basically the Institute possible."
Their gift deepens a partnership built over years of philanthropic investment, including the Tarkington Family Faculty Fellowships, and carries forward Al and Stephanie's shared conviction that the best knowledge should be available to everyone — not just a fortunate few.