Wayne L. Strom 85, Thousand Oaks

‘He was a very caring person, a gentle person. He loved nature and the mountains, and he really loved to garden.’

— KATHY STROM

The irony was not lost on David Feinberg, the former UCLA Health System president who is in his second year as vice president of Google Health in Mountain View, Calif.

Reflecting on the life of Wayne L. Strom, a former Pepperdine professor of behavioral science who was 85 when he died of complications from COVID-19 on April 2, Feinberg recalled an assignment from Strom’s organizational behavior class that still sticks with him two decades later.

“You had to write your own obituary, speaking of obituaries,” Feinberg, 58, said. “It was a high-powered group of executives in the class, and it was, like, ‘Do you want to be remembered for making a lot of money and that your stock went up, or do you want to be remembered for helping humanity?’ I think it taught me to lead with empathy, and that was the best thing I learned from Wayne.”

Strom, who earned a bachelor of divinity degree from the Berkeley Baptist Divinity School and a doctorate from UCLA, became a full-time Pepperdine faculty member in 1970.

He was a founder of the prestigious Pepperdine Presidential and Key Executive MBA program and was selected as a Harriet and Charles Luckman distinguished teaching fellow in 1991.

Strom’s primary interests during a 42-year teaching career were organizational performance enhancement and spirituality in business. He coached, assessed and taught leadership to more than 1,500 company presidents and senior executives, and served as a consultant to numerous corporations in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

“He really helped create the business school that we have today,” said Ann E. Feyerherm, 59, an associate dean and 27-year professor of organization theory and management at Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business. “He believed you develop leaders through a better understanding of one’s self.” Strom retired from Pepperdine in 2012. Strom and his wife, Kathy, were married 38 years and lived in Thousand Oaks, where Strom turned their backyard into something of a nature retreat, planting several redwood trees and fruit trees — fig, cherry, nectarine, apricot, peach, persimmon — and a rose garden.

“He was a very caring person, a gentle person,” his wife said. “He loved nature and the mountains, and he really loved to garden.”

The couple also enjoyed biking along Pacific Coast Highway and hiking. In 1988, they climbed Mt. Fuji — at 12,389 feet, the highest peak in Japan — reaching the summit in time “to watch this beautiful sunrise,” Kathy said.

Wayne Strom’s health began to decline last fall, and he moved into the Kensington Redondo Beach senior living facility in December. He developed pneumonia in late March and was admitted to Torrance Memorial Hospital on March 30. He was diagnosed with the coronavirus and died three days later.

“He went quickly,” his wife said. “It was just a matter of three days, so I was really shocked. It was very hard to not be able to be with him when he passed, and that we’re not able to have a memorial right now. That’s been challenging.”

Strom is also survived by his son, David, and a grandson, Everett.