In summer 2015, Follett, an education products and services company, sent UNC an unsolicited proposal to privatize Student Stores. Before he retired, he helped draft the request for proposals that invited other companies to apply to lease Student Stores. On Nov. 30, Gorsuch officially retired.
In an interview with The Daily Tar Heel, Gorsuch said he regretted the timing of his retirement, but he made the decision to leave because he qualified for retirement.
Brad Ives, associate vice chancellor for campus enterprises, said Gorsuch had told him that he had simply put his years in.
“It’s fairly typical with what you see with state employees that once they reach their 30 years point, they’ll decide to retire,” Ives said.
Ives said Gorsuch had told him he was excited to see his daughter more after his work at UNC ended and was surprised to hear from a consultant that Gorsuch had come out of retirement to work at Duke Stores.
Gorsuch declined to comment on why he came out of retirement; Ives speculated that Gorsuch decided retirement wasn’t his cup of tea.
“I’ve seen it happen so many times, especially with state employment, some people retire and figure out retirement wasn’t what it was supposed to be and go back to work,” Ives said.
Jim Wilkerson, director of trademark licensing and stores operations for Duke Stores, confirmed that Gorsuch is a current employee of the store, which is a department of Duke University.
