Since 1992, Joel Peterson has taught courses in real estate, entrepreneurship, and leadership at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. Peterson’s course focus is presently on the effective management and leadership of growing businesses. His abiding interest, however, is in students and the important decisions they will make in the business world and in their personal lives.

Mr. Peterson founded Peterson Partners (PPLP), a Salt Lake City-based private equity group with some $1/2 Billion under management. PPLP focuses on providing growth and buyout capital to businesses with strong management teams and a track record of success. Peterson Partners has invested in local Utah businesses such as Winder Dairy, Making Memories, EnergySolutions, Diamond Rental, Asphalt Zipper and 3form, as well as national businesses such as JetBlue Airways, Cranium and Asurion, and international ones such as Azul Linhas Aereas Brasileiras, Packsize, D&S Investments, and K.P.R. Mill Limited.

Separate from this private equity business, Mr. Peterson founded JCP Capital to fulfill a passion for partnering with talented entrepreneurs in earlier stage or smaller ventures.

Mr. Peterson has been on the faculty at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University since 1992 where he has taught courses in real estate investment, entrepreneurship and leadership. He was selected by students to receive the 2005 Distinguished Teacher Award. He currently serves as a Director at Stanford’s Center for Leadership Development and Research, as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Group, and as an Overseer at the Hoover Institution.

Between 1973 and 1991, he was Treasurer, CFO, Board member and CEO of Trammell Crow Company, the world’s largest private real estate development firm.

Mr. Peterson is currently Chairman of the Board at JetBlue Airways, and on the boards of Franklin Covey and Ladder Capital Finance, a billion-dollar real estate investment company, and Bonobos, a New York based apparel start-up. Over the past 35 years, he has served on dozens of public and private boards including Asurion, the Dallas Market Center, Texas Commerce Bank (Dallas), the Advisory Board at the GSB at Stanford, and on the President’s Council at his alma mater. He was valedictorian at his undergraduate institution, Brigham Young University, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1973.

He and his wife, Diana, have been married for 38 years and have 7 children and 14 grandchildren.