In Memoriam

Ronald G. Greenwood

With the death of Ron Greenwood on September 25, 1995, the Academy of Management lost a highly visible leader who maintained an influential presence in the management history field for some quarter century.  Ron embodied the academic ideal of the creative and productive scholar whose talents were expressed equally in teaching and research.  His ability to inspire his students to the excitement of management was truly remarkable.  He drew his students into a deeper appreciation of management and its relation to their own lives.

 Ron brought to the classroom a wide variety of experiences.  A former research assistant to Peter Drucker, he reveled in telling stories about times with Drucker ad Harold Smiddy, a former Academy president and General Electric vice president.  Outgoing and always enthusiastic, Ron played a major role in the Academy’s Management History Division, serving as its chair on two occasions.  As a University of Oklahoma Ph.D. student of former Academy president Ron Shuman, Ron came by his interest in the evolution of management theory early in his career.

Ron was born on May 23, 1941 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the son of William J. and Mildred Greenwood.  He received his B.S. from Ithaca College, MBA from Cornell University, and Ph.D. in 1971 from the University of Oklahoma.  He taught at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse from 1972-1983 before joining he faculty at the GMI engineering and Management Institute, Flint, Michigan, where he was the F. James McDonald Professor of Industrial Management.  He also taught in the Nova Southeastern University program for numerous years.

Together with Bob Ford, Ron did the spade work leading to the creation of the Journal of Management History; working with Al Bolton and others, he helped pioneer the use of video history – videos of James C. Worthy, Franklin Moore, Morris Vitales, and the surviving participants of the Hawthorne studies are only a part of his legacy.  His writings covered numerous people of interest – The Gilbreths; F. W. Taylor (with Chuck Wrege); the Hawthorne Studies (with his wife, Regina and Al Bolton); and many other book chapters, articles, and presentations.  He authored Managerial Decentralization: A Study of the General Electric Philosophy; co-authored Frederick W. Taylor: The Father of Scientific Management (with Charles D. Wrege); co-edited James C. Worthy’s Lean But Not Mean: Studies in Organization Structure, (with David G. Moore; and The Evolving Science of Management: The Collected Papers of Harold Smiddy (with Melvin Zimet).

Ron’s courage was unflagging:  he attended the Academy of Management meetings in Vancouver this past summer and participated in pre-conference and other sessions even though he needed to return to his room occasionally to rest; and he spent a full evening interviewing Jim Worthy for a video history just before the meetings ended.

 Ron leaves his family:  his wife, Regina, and his sons Peter and Ron.  He also has a bigger family, a multitude of former students, friends, and colleagues who had the good fortune to be on this earth when he was.  He achieved what all of us hope to do – he made a difference in the lives of others.  We will miss him.

Dan Wren, Art Bedeian, and Al Bolton

Richard M. Hodgetts

On November 17, 2001 Richard M. Hodgetts passed away after a battle with cancer.  Our Academy of Management lost a great educator and friend.  Richard was an active Academy member his whole career, serving among many other activities as program chair and chair of the management history division, recent editor of the New Time special issue of AME, and was elected Fellow in 1983, Board of Governors 1993-1996, and received the Distinguished Educator Award in 1999.  At the time of his death, he was on the Executive Organizing Committee and Chair of the All-Academy Symposia for the 2002 meeting.

  Richard was a prolific author, with over 25 different college texts in numerous editions and languages.  In addition, he published well over a hundred articles in practitioner and research journals such as AMJ.  He was also the editor of Journal of Leadership Studies and served on a number of editorial boards. 

  Besides his tremendous contribution to the management body of knowledge, he was known as a truly outstanding classroom teacher.  He won every Distinguished Teaching Award offered at both his first job for 10 years at the University of Nebraska and his home school for the past 25 years at Florida International University.  For example, this year he was voted Faculty Member of the year by the Executive MBA students.  He literally developed thousands of students at all levels - undergraduate, MBA, executive development, and doctoral - and millions across the world were influenced by his texts and innovative distance education materials and courses.

  Although the above is just a sampling of Richard's distinguished career as a scholar and educator, those who knew him will never forget his humor, his dedication to the Academy, his genuine interest in you and your work, his compassion, and since his illness struck, his true courage.  He brought a zest and fun to life and to the end, did it his way.  His family (which was always number one in his life), friends, students, colleagues, Academy members, and the field of management will miss him very much.  However, we are all better off for having known him and he will always be with us. 

Fred Luthans

 Julia Kurtz Teahen

From the time she became a member in 1996, Julia Kurtz Teahen tirelessly served the Academy of Management and, especially, the Management History Division. She was the division’s chair in 2007, and served as its webmaster and newsletter editor for over a decade. Julia was a model of volunteer involvement, believing that an organization’s members should fully participate in its activities. She was president of the North American Management Society in 2009, and served on its Board of Directors from 2010. In fall 2009, she became Editor of the Journal of the North American Management Society. Julia was a member of the Advisory Council of the MBAA International (formerly the Midwest Business Administration Association) and attended its annual meeting for over 20 years.

In 1995, Julia became the Managing Editor for the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, originally the Journal of Leadership Studies. Together with Fred Luthans, John W. Slocum, Jr., and Kenneth R. Thompson, she was instrumental in transitioning the journal to the Sage Publishing Group. Julia’s research interests ranged from management history to cross-cultural and comparative studies to on-line education and leadership. Examples of her work include “C. Betrand Thompson and Management Consulting in Europe, 1917-1934” (with Regina A. Greenwood, Daniel A. Wren, and Arthur G. Bedeian), Journal of Management History (2015); and “Intergenerational Value Change in the US and Latin America: A Cross-Cultural Empirical Test” (with members of the Global Culture and Entrepreneurship Research Group), 2017 Academy of Management Proceedings. Julia’s colleagues and co-authors inevitably became her lifetime friends.

Born on September 28, 1969, in Flint, MI, Julia spent her entire 30-year career with Baker College, where she was a full professor of management and leadership. From 1997 - 2015, she was president of Baker College - Online. She earned a BA degree from Michigan State University, a MS degree from Central Michigan University, and a DBA from Nova Southeastern University.

Julia courageously battled breast cancer for 13 years. She died at her home in Grand Blanc, Michigan on April 25, 2020, with her husband Roy and children Joseph, Nolan and Elise at her side. Julia approached everything in her life with irresistible enthusiasm. She will be deeply missed by her family and her many, many friends, whom she always greeted with a smile. Donations for breast cancer research in Julia's honor may be sent to the American Cancer Society.

April 28, 2020

John F. Mee

John F. Mee Is Dead at 77; Management Field Pioneer

John F. Mee, former chairman of the department of management at the Indiana University School of Business, died Sunday at Bloomington Hospital in Indiana. He was 77 years old and lived in Bloomington.

''John Mee was truly one of the pioneers of management education,'' said Jack R. Wentworth, dean of the School of Business. ''He was great and he had the capacity of making those around him great.''

Professor Mee, an authority on the changing concepts of management, joined the faculty of Indiana University in 1939 and remained there until his retirement in 1979, except for leaves of absence to serve in government posts and as visiting professor at institutions around the country.

In World War II Professor Mee was a colonel in the Air Force. In 1950 President Truman named him staff director the ''Little Cabinet'' committee created to catalogue men and women specially qualified for high Government positions.

Professor Mee leaves his wife, the former Muriel E. Collins; two daughters, Marcia Shuster, of Dayton, Ohio, and Virginia Burns, of Cambridge, Mass.; a brother, Kirk Mee, of Oxford, Ohio, and five grandchildren.

New York Times November 23, 1985.