Tuck School of Business professor Steve Kahl ’91 “always had his door open” for students — whether they wanted to talk about school or were reaching out for life advice, his daughter Hattie Kahl said. With his family and friends, he demonstrated the same inclusivity, kindness and infectious positivity.
“He was very kind and considerate of everybody,” Kahl’s close friend Rob Mairs ’91 said. “A thoughtful listener — the type of friend you want.”
Born May 9, 1969 in Arlington Heights, Ill., Kahl studied philosophy and graduated magna cum laude from the College. Outside the classroom, Kahl was a member of the Phi Delta Alpha fraternity and played on the men’s rugby team, according to Mairs. He loved to cook and was passionate about entrepreneurship, Kahl’s wife Suzie Rubin added.
Kahl died at age 55 on July 4 after a seven-year battle with multiple system atrophy — a rare neurological disorder. Hattie Kahl said he was “extremely positive” and always wanted to “make everyone else smile” even while fighting his disorder.
“It was a privilege to help take care of him for those seven years,” she said.
Kahl, a “foodie,” is remembered for his love of his Green Egg grill — and his excitement to share it with others. According to Hattie Kahl, her father would often invite friends, colleagues and students to their house for dinner.
“It was always a very welcoming environment in my home,” she said. “I always thought of food as being at the center of it.”
Kahl brought the same welcoming environment to the classroom. Rubin, a senior advisor at the Tuck Center for Health Care, commended her husband’s passion for teaching and his dedication to his students.
“He was always very excited to connect with students,” Rubin said. “For Steve, as much as academia is about research, he really loved to teach.”
Kahl’s colleague Lisa Tedeschi, who serves as executive director of undergraduate programs and select initiatives at Tuck, agreed that Kahl had a wonderful bond with his students.
“He welcomed and offered his time very generously to undergraduate students,” Tedeschi said. “He really made sure that they felt respected and valued, and that truly speaks to the kind of character that he had.”
That level of connection in the classroom was palpable. As a child, Hattie Kahl recalled sitting in on some of her father’s classes in awe.
“I first went to one of his classes when I was 10,” she said. “I remember sitting in the front row and just being completely enamored with how he captured a room.”
In addition to cooking and teaching, Rubin and Hattie Kahl said Kahl enjoyed sports — he was an “avid fan” of Liverpool FC, according to Hattie Kahl — and spending time with Gus, the family dog. Rubin recalled that Kahl coached their son Henry Kahl’s soccer team when he first picked up the sport.
While he supported his children’s pursuits, Kahl was also unafraid to pursue his own dreams. In 2003, after close to a decade in consulting and equity research, Kahl decided to pursue a doctoral degree in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, Rubin said.
“In a dramatic deviation, at nearly 40 years old, [he] left the boardroom for the classroom, a shift motivated by [his] unrelenting intellectual curiosity,” Henry Kahl wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth. “[He] showed me that aspirations can reveal themselves at any moment, that dreams aren’t something we only form when we are young.”
In 2012, Kahl and his family returned to the Upper Valley, where he became an assistant professor in the strategy and management area at Tuck, according to an obituary by Legacy. Rubin said moving back to the area was “extremely special” for Kahl, who greatly enjoyed “being involved in the community.”
While at Tuck, Kahl helped design programs for both Tuck and undergraduate students, according to an obituary by The Valley News. As a founding faculty director, Kahl worked with business administration adjunct professor Daniella Reichstetter Tu ’07 to establish the Tuck Center for Entrepreneurship, which provides support and resources to “students at any stage in their entrepreneurial journey,” according to Reichstetter.
“He really, really believed in students,” Reichstetter said. “Sometimes he believed in them more than they did, and I think that is something quite special.”
Reichstetter also recalled Kahl’s “warm” and “inclusive” personality, which he extended to everybody he met.
“He loved making people’s day,” she said. “He got immense joy out of other people’s joy, and that extended to his teaching.”
Kahl also worked closely with associate director of business leadership programs Emmanuel Ajavon in developing Tuck’s Diversity Entrepreneurship Collaboration Workshop. The program, which Ajavon leads, works with underrepresented entrepreneurs to gain the skills to scale and grow their business, Ajavon explained.
“I was directed to Steve at the time, and I pretty much just sort of knocked [on] his door and introduced myself,” Ajavon said. “He immediately got the ball rolling because he just loved the idea.”
Kahl always brought a sense of “joy” to their work, he added.
“I still miss his warm, welcoming personality and his thoughtfulness,” Ajavon said. “He never gave a sense of things being brushed off.”
Kahl’s student Simon Hirsch Tu ’21, who had Kahl as an advisor for both his First Year Project and Tuck Incubator project, remembered Kahl as “incredibly curious” and “incredibly focused” during conversations.
“He was someone who was helping you solve a problem during those moments,” Hirsch said. “He let me come to those conclusions and solutions, and it felt empowering.”
Linda Magara Horner Tu ’20 — one of Kahl’s former students — said Kahl embodied “resilience” and “positivity,” despite his diagnosis with MSA. Magara Horner added that Kahl was a “source of calm” during her time as a student. She explained that she attended Tuck while also parenting two children, which was a “very challenging” experience. Kahl, however, was a source of consistent guidance and support.
“Trying to do all of the things I want to do, trying to do entrepreneurship, trying to get all my classes done — there were a lot of pressures and stresses,” Magara Horner said. “I found myself in his office, just so overwhelmed, and he was always such a source of calm and comfort.”
Hattie Kahl said her father would “always make an effort to connect with students and colleagues outside of work.”
“He always had a lending hand and showed up when needed,” she said.
During a service on Aug. 10, Henry Kahl added that his father’s legacy will endure.
“While [his] physical presence is no longer, [his] legacy is forever enduring, a vibrant shadow on this great world,” Henry Kahl said during the service. “Life dealt us all a tragic hand in [his] premature passing. However, life dealt me the best hand of all — the gift of calling [him] my father.”
Correction Appended (Oct. 1, 10:40 a.m.): A previous version of this article stated that Steve Kahl worked in equity research for nearly a decade. The article has been updated to clarify that Kahl spent close to a decade in consulting and equity research prior to starting a Ph.D at MIT.
