Eyster

James J. Eyster Jr., ’69, Ph.D. ’77, a School of Hotel Administration (SHA) professor emeritus of finance, accounting and real estate, died April 7 in Ithaca following a stroke. He was 74.

A Cornell faculty member since 1972, Eyster is credited with creating an entirely new area of study – with his exploration and analysis of hotel management contracts – then writing the authoritative book on the subject.

Jan A. de Roos ’78 who collaborated with Eyster on the fourth edition of that book, “The Negotiation and Administration of Hotel Management Contracts,” calls Eyster “the intellectual father of hospitality real estate management.” De Roos, SHA associate professor and the HVS Professor of Hotel Finance and Real Estate, who was an SHA freshman the same year Eyster became a “freshman” faculty member, said, “Jim Eyster was known for his warmth and integrity,” adding, “He always took the high ground.”

De Roos remembered one prescient addition by Eyster to the School of Hotel Administration curriculum: a course on the housing and feeding of homeless people. Administrators and some faculty members of the nation’s pre-eminent hospitality education institution were a bit unsettled, at first, de Roos recalled, “but the students cherished that class and the man who taught it.”

Glenn Withiam, executive editor of the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly explained that by the 1960s hotel management contracts between property owners and management companies were becoming “remarkably complex and detailed, and Professor Eyster realized the importance of compiling and analyzing their diverse terms.”

Withiam pointed to Eyster’s “astonishing accomplishment of persuading several hundred hotel owners, operators, financial partners and consultants to share the terms of their management contracts, as well as their experiences with and concerns about those contracts.

“This was no mean feat in an industry as competitive as the hotel business,” Withiam said. “The fact that they were willing to provide this information to Professor Eyster demonstrates the trust he earned from his contacts, and the fact that this book continues in print testifies to the importance of this research.”

The book was first published in 1977 by the School of Hotel Administration, with subsequent editions in 1980, 1988 and 2009. Eyster retired in 1999, but continued to keep in touch with his students. They returned the favor by nominating Eyster to carry the 2002 Olympic Torch through Seneca Falls, New York, on Dec. 31, 2001, on the way to the Olympics in Utah.

James Jeffries Eyster Jr. was born March 28, 1941, grew up in Pennsylvania, and attended colleges there. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Cornell in 1969 - as well his 1977 doctorate with a dissertation on management contracts. He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Susan Brown Eyster, a sister, two children (Jennifer Bradley and William James (Jamie) Eyster) and a grandchild (Grace Bradley). Information on suggested donations can be found in the Ithaca Journal obituary.