While an undergraduate at Stanford, Jacques Littlefield built remote-controlled models, among them a 1/5-scale WWII-era Red Army T34/85 tank with a working flamethrower. Years later, he bought the real thing, a 30-ton monster with an 85mm cannon and "For Stalin!" painted on its turret.
In his lifetime, Littlefield, '71, MBA '73 (above), amassed what is likely the world's largest privately held collection of armored fighting vehicles. In 1998 he established and funded the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation to preserve the collection for the future. A member of the foundation's original board of directors, and current president, CEO and chairman of the board Bill Boller, '68, MBA '71, recalls Littlefield once remarking, "For me, the important part of the tanks is to understand the industrial know-how that allowed them to be built, and then document those findings. There may not be much appreciation for them now, but hopefully after I'm gone people will look back and say, 'Thank God he saved these historical vehicles instead of just letting them rust away and disappear forever.'"
Littlefield passed away in January 2009, but the work he started carries on. Today, roughly 300 military vehicles, a third of them tanks, reside at a Portola Valley complex that is part repair shop and part museum. Boller says roughly 100 vehicles await restoration, though not all of them will be returned to full combat-ready condition. The foundation gives a limited number of tours of the core collection to groups such as engineering students, military scholars, defense contractors, movie crews and members of the public.
The challenge now, says Boller, is developing a strategy and business plan to ensure that the collection continues to be available as a resource. Littlefield's middle son Scott, MA '05, a visiting scholar at Stanford, as well as his eldest son and one of his daughters have become "significantly engaged," says Boller, in the foundation's mission and in preserving their father's legacy.
