Adjunct professor retired Maj. Gen. Jerry Holmes didn’t expect to still be teaching in 2011. In fact, he didn’t expect to be teaching in 1999, his third year of lecturing his now always full leadership and management course.

However, Holmes manages a morning and afternoon section with 55 and 56 students enrolled, respectively.

“I said ‘I’ll teach it a maximum of two years,’” he said. “I had no idea that I would love it so much. There is a great feeling of reward, of fulfillment in teaching this next generation of leaders about the mistakes that I’ve made, the successes I’ve had, the failures I’ve had and what I’ve learned from each of them.”

Holmes knows about leadership. He retired Sept. 1, 1989 from the Air Force with 130 tactical combat missions, fighter group, fighter wing and allied force commands to his name. He flew fighters in Vietnam, and served at Air Force bases in Virginia, South Carolina, Idaho and at Tinker in Oklahoma City.

“At one time, the man led 50,000 people on one of his assignments,” said Bill Crynes, dean emeritus of the College of Engineering. “Think about that.”

Crynes was dean when Holmes, then on the college’s Board of Visitors, told him engineering students needed the examples of strong leadership that taught his engineering classes at OU in the 1950s — Holmes received a bachelor’s in geologic engineering in 1958 and earned a master’s in aerospace engineering in 1964.

Back then, he said, many professors and faculty had served as officers in World War II.

Crynes told the future adjunct to develop such a class. “I said, ‘I don’t know if I could do this,’” said Holmes, added he never trained formally as a teacher.

The course’s first semester had only 22 students and “was built pretty heavily around guest speakers,” according to Holmes.

Eventually, the new professor settled in and became extremely comfortable sharing his experiences as an Air Force commander with OU students, many of whom benefited from Holmes’ instruction outside of the classroom.

Currently a doctoral student at Georgia Tech, Deji Fajebe earned his bachelor’s degree in his home country of Nigeria before earning a master’s in electrical and computer engineering at OU, his first time in America.

It was in Norman that he met Holmes, who would eventually write him a letter of recommendation to doctorate programs.

“He was my professor in the leadership and management class,” Fajebe said. “After that, he became like a mentor to me.”

When asked about the most important thing he learned from Holmes, Fajebe struggled to narrow down to a single answer.

“As an engineer, we want to find the problem and fix the problem, to solve the problem there and then,” Fajebe said. “What we learned in the class is that life goes beyond that. There is a social side to it, where you learn how to work with others and achieve a collective goal.”

Fajebe said Holmes’ class was an enriching experience.

“Taking his class opened my mind,” he said. “Getting results is more than just doing a differential equation and getting the result. That’s not what it takes to be a leader.”

Crynes confirmed that Fajebe’s experience was closer to class standard than outlier. In hundreds of course and teacher evaluations, he’s read glowing praises of leadership and management.

Crynes also stressed the importance of the development of such skills Holmes teaches for engineering students.

“Most students at this level have very little leadership experience unless they went through Boy Scouts, Future Farmers of America or some sort of high school leadership program,” Crynes said.

Mechanical engineering senior Todd Stair, who took Holmes’ class in the fall, said the course changed his outlook on his future.

“General Holmes taught me the people skills that are elusive for many engineers,” Stair said. “My outlook on my career is more leadership- and people-oriented after taking his class, and he really makes every student believe that they can be an effective leader.”

75 years old and twice retired, Holmes said his reason for teaching the class is sharing in the successes of his students, many of whom he singles out and discusses with paternal fondness.

He thinks of them as his grandchildren, he said. “An officer and a gentleman,” Crynes said. “It’s a cliché, I know, but he personifies it.”