Directors of RadioShack Corp. said Tuesday they stand behind the retailer’s chief executive despite a published report that he did not earn two college degrees listed on his resume.
A biography of David J. Edmondson given to reporters and posted on the company’s Web site claimed that he earned degrees in theology and psychology from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California.
But the registrar of the school, which moved to Oklahoma in 1998 and renamed itself Heartland Baptist Bible College, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that records showed Edmondson completed only two semesters and that the school never offered degrees in psychology.
Edmondson, 46, is scheduled to stand trial in April on charges of driving while intoxicated after being pulled over near his home in a Fort Worth suburb.
The company board issued a statement Tuesday saying it knows about the matters raised in the article “and has given due consideration to them.”
The board said it “reaffirms its support for David Edmondson in fulfilling his role as chief executive officer.”
Edmondson became CEO in May, the hand-picked successor to Leonard Roberts. He joined the company in 1994 after a background that included founding two churches and working for a direct-marketing company. He has been trying to revive sales and profits, but the company had a disappointing 2005.
Through a spokeswoman, Edmondson declined to comment Tuesday. He told the Star-Telegram that he earned a degree in theology after completing a three-year program through correspondence. He said the college must have lost his paperwork, and he said he never misled RadioShack.
The resume listed Edmondson’s degree as a bachelor of science, which requires more courses than the three-year program he mentioned in the interview.
“I am responsible for how I represented myself to the company,” he said. “So anyway, I’ll just say this: If I were going to make stuff up, I probably would have found something a little more impressive to make up.”
Roger Howse, the registrar at Pacific Coast Baptist College who stayed with the school when it moved to Oklahoma City, declined to comment to The Associated Press. He told the Star-Telegram that records showed Edmondson completed only two semesters. He said the school has no reason to believe that its student files are incomplete.
Jack Baskin, a former Pacific Coast Baptist vice president, told Heartland Baptist officials last week that after talking to Edmondson and former employees, he was confident Edmondson graduated in 1980. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Edmondson also said he felt “terrible” about his most recent arrest for driving while intoxicated, in January 2005. According to the Southlake police report, Edmondson failed a sobriety test and declined to take a breath test. The newspaper said he has been using a hired driver because his license was suspended.
Edmondson had been arrested twice before on DWI charges, but was acquitted once and received adjudicated probation on a lesser charge the second time, the newspaper reported.