Maxine Clark, Founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop®, a teddy-bear themed retail-entertainment experience, will be SCC’s commencement speaker at the 37th annual commencement, to be held at the St. Charles Family Arena on Wednesday, May 14, at 6 p.m.
In 2004, Build-A-Bear became a public company traded on the NYSE. Today there are nearly 500 Build-A-Bear Workshop stores worldwide and over 250 million stuffed animals have been sold world-wide. In 2022, Build-A-Bear celebrated its 25th anniversary. In 2025 Maxine was inaugurated into the International Toy Hall of Fame and named by Chain Store Age magazine as one of the 20 most Influential Pioneers in Retail.
Maxine stepped down from her CEB (Chief Executive Bear) position in 2013 to start her next act-- to help unleash the potential of women and minority entrepreneurs and to use her entrepreneurial skills to create platforms and places that give access to more St. Louis families. Her latest venture is the Delmar DivINe™—the transformation of a neighborhood eyesore, the historic St. Luke’s Hospital in the St. Louis West End, into a multi-use real estate development opened in late 2021.
Maxine is an Emeritus member of the Build-A-Bear Workshop Board of Directors and a recent past member of Footlocker, Inc. Board of Directors. Maxine is also an Emeritus member of the Washington University Board of Trustees and an Emeritus member and former Chair of Goldfarb School of Nursing. She now serves on the boards of Arch Grants, PBS national and Nine PBS boards. In 2017 Maxine was named to the Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame and in 2015 was named Women of the Year by the Greater Missouri Leadership Foundation.
Maxine is a graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Washington University in St. Louis and St. Louis University and an Honorary Doctor in Human Letters from the University of Missouri St. Louis and The A.T. Still School of Dental Medicine and an Honorary associate degree from St. Louis Community College.
The ceremony will be livestreamed on SCC’s website, www.stchas.edu/graduation, and available on YouTube.
Bio information provided by Clark-Fox Family Foundation.