Ira Jackson may have had more jobs than any other university dean in America. After graduating from Harvard University in 1970, the Boston native went to work as chief aide to two big-city mayors; first Kenneth Gibson of Newark, N.J., then Kevin White of Boston. Later, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis asked him to clean house at the state’s corrupt tax department. And all that happened between stints spent teaching at Harvard, writing books, heading major foundations, serving as executive vice president of BankBoston and directing Harvard’s Center for Business and Government, to name not all of his jobs. Since 2006, Jackson has been dean of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in L.A. County’s eastern border. Describing it as the “little engine that could,” Jackson says he intends to put the tiny business school – named for the famous management consultant who died in 2005 – more squarely on the map. The Business Journal recently caught up with Jackson at his office on Claremont’s newly named Drucker Way as the school prepared for this week’s Drucker Centennial Week marking the author’s hundredth birthday celebration. He talked about his long career, his vision for the Drucker school and how a lifelong Easterner is making the adjustment to Los Angeles.

Question: You spent much of your early life involved in politics. How did that happen?

Answer: I grew up in a public housing project in Chelsea, Mass., where my folks were social activists. I remember being at a political rally in 1952 and sitting on Adlai Stevenson’s lap (the year) he went down to defeat against Eisenhower that first time. There aren’t too many people from Boston of my generation who didn’t grow up to be Kennedy Democrats. President Kennedy had a profound influence on our entire society, but especially on impressionable young kids from his hometown. I actually ran for town meeting (city council) while I was in college. At age 18, I was the youngest ever to do so.

Q: I take it you weren’t successful.

A: No. I did, however, get deeply involved in urban governance at a very young age. After graduating from Harvard, I was teaching at a community college in Newark, N.J., when one night I found myself driving behind a black guy in a Lincoln Continental with a Harvard sticker on the back. So I pulled him over and he was scared to death because he’d never seen a white guy in downtown Newark after 5 p.m. Remember, this was in the early 1970s. I said, “Did your kid go to Harvard?” It turned out that his son and I had lived across from each other freshman year. So he told me to shave, get a coat and tie and be in his office the next day at 9 a.m. I did and there was Kenneth Gibson, the newly elected first black mayor of Newark whose campaign manager was the guy I’d met. Gibson said, “Ira, how’d you like to come to work for me?”

Q: What did you do for him?

A: Wrote speeches and handled Washington relations. I did everything short of being a bodyguard. He kind of adopted me and brought me into the inner sanctum. Then, a couple of years later, I got another lucky break; Kevin White, the mayor of Boston, called me out of the blue and said, “If you ever want to come home I’ve got a job waiting for you as my chief of staff.” So I went back to Boston.

Q: How long did that last?

A: Three turbulent years. Busing was a big issue then, and it was also during Kevin White’s brief involvement in national politics as George McGovern’s running mate for a couple of hours before he got knocked off by somebody else from Boston who turned out to be a very good friend, Ted Kennedy. It was an exciting time.