Click here for a high resolution photo of Samuel Richmond.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Samuel B. Richmond, who left a distinguished
teaching and research career at Columbia University to move to
Vanderbilt University, where he transformed the Owen Graduate School of
Management from a small regional graduate school of business into one
of the nation’s best, died Monday. He was 84.
"Sam Richmond was a dear friend and colleague for more than 30
years," said Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee. "He was first and
foremost an extraordinary teacher, but his equally important legacy is
as a builder and steward of one of the great business schools in this
country. Vanderbilt University and the Owen School were forever
changed by Sam’s leadership, and his accomplishments will be felt for
generations to come."
Current Owen Dean William Christie said, "Dean Richmond is truly the
rock upon which this great business school was built. At great
professional risk, he assumed the leadership of the school in 1976 and,
after 10 years of perseverance and ingenuity, created a world-class
business school. Every alum, from 1976 through the present, owes Sam
Richmond a deep sense of gratitude, and I know that he will be sorely
missed by all of us."
Richmond was a professor of economics and statistics at Columbia
University in 1976 when Vanderbilt Chancellor Alexander Heard and a
group of influential Nashville business leaders persuaded him to become
dean of what is now the Owen Graduate School of Management. During a
31-year tenure at Columbia, which began when he was a graduate student
and included service as acting dean of the Graduate School of Business
from 1972 to 1973, Richmond built a reputation as a passionate and
enthusiastic teacher, a distinguished scholar, an expert on air
transportation and a respected authority on management issues.
He was a much sought-after management consultant to numerous
national and international corporations and government agencies,
including Eastern Airlines, El-Al Airlines, Coca-Cola, General Motors,
Pillsbury, United Fruit Company, DuPont, the U.S. Secret Service, the
Civil Aeronautics Board and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
It was the challenge of building and running a program of his own
with the strong support of the University and the local business
community that attracted him to Vanderbilt and what he would later call
the "crowning achievement" of his career. "I didn’t know about the joys
of building something, of setting something up and making it run," he
said in an interview in the September 1982 edition of Nashville’s
Advantage magazine. "I was a professor. I was studying, teaching,
writing books. I never thought of myself as a manager or an
entrepreneur. Suddenly I found myself thrust into that position, and I
loved it."
From the beginning, he had specific goals for the school. On a
blackboard in his office, he wrote his first four goals: curriculum,
faculty, students and building. Through the years until his retirement
as dean in 1986, he added more goals, and, as each was achieved, he
crossed it off.
In the 10 years he was dean, the student body grew from 80 students
to 400; the faculty increased from seven to 40; and the curriculum was
transformed from one emphasizing a behavioral approach to management to
one based on strong core courses that relied on proven educational
methods. It remains the course of study used today in the school’s MBA
program, which is ranked 15th in the world by the Wall Street Journal.
He accomplished the fourth of his original goals in 1982 when the
school moved into its current $6 million building, for which Richmond
had worked tirelessly to raise money and whose construction he had
overseen diligently. Instrumental in that fund-raising effort was the
support of Nashville executive Ralph (Peck) Owen and his wife, Lulu
Hampton Owen. The school was named for the Owens in 1977. Over the
years, the couple donated approximately $60 million to Vanderbilt for
the school, culminating in 1996 in a $33.5 million bequest, at the time
the largest-ever gift to an American business school.
As dean, Richmond also established the Executive MBA program to
afford persons in mid-career the opportunity to earn their MBA while
continuing in their jobs, and he guided the school through the complex
and often trying process of achieving accreditation from the American
Association of Collegiate Schools of Business.
Hans Stoll, Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker Jr. Professor of
Finance, was one of the faculty that Richmond brought on board to
strengthen the school. Stoll, who was recruited in 1980 from the
University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said of Richmond. "He was
our leader and cheerleader. He set the course for the Owen School that
we still follow today. He made the case for a first-rate business
school; he had a vision that was clear; he was able to articulate it
and people followed him."
In a Jan. 27, 1983, article in The Tennessean, Richmond shared his
approach to business education. "My philosophy is that the business
schools should lead the business community, not follow it," he said.
"Current practice in the business community is going to be obsolete
tomorrow. You have to keep changing. We teach people how to handle
change."
Even though he achieved success in many endeavors, Richmond "at
heart was a teacher – an excellent and exuberant teacher," said his
daughter, Phyllis Richmond.
Van Tucker of Nashville, a member of the EMBA class of 1996, said,
"He was really an extraordinary teacher. He was my statistics
professor, but I’m not sure that’s really what I learned from him.
Because of his support and compassion, he taught me more about myself
that anything else."
Born in Boston on Oct. 14, 1919, Richmond for a time considered
becoming a lawyer like his father. Because of the Depression, he
decided to study chemistry, which would allow him to begin supporting
himself in four years. After graduating from Boston Latin School, he
entered Harvard University, where he helped pay his way through school
with a variety of jobs, including delivering newspapers and selling hot
dogs at Harvard football games.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Harvard in
1940, he went to work as a chemist for the U.S. government. During
World War II, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps as a meteorology cadet.
He served as a first lieutenant and was assigned as a meteorology
instructor at the Weather School at Chanute Field, Ill.
In 1946, he enrolled in the Graduate School of Business at Columbia
University majoring in economics and statistics. He earned an MBA in
1948 and a Ph.D. in 1951.
His academic teaching career began when his instructor in first-year
economics recommended that Richmond take over teaching the course. The
dean agreed, and Richmond embarked on his long and distinguished career
as an educator. After his retirement as dean of the Owen School,
Richmond returned to teaching as the Ralph Owen Professor of
Management. He taught statistics until 1996 in the school’s EMBA
program.
The year after his retirement as dean, he received the award as the
EMBA program’s best teacher. In the most recent edition of Owen @
Vanderbilt magazine, Richmond authored an article on the start of the
EMBA program in 1978. He said that many of those first students, some
of whom had not studied math in 15 or 20 years, were frightened by the
challenging curriculum. He assured them that they would succeed – "that
our program selection process was intended to ensure that. They had met
the three critical criteria: they had to be bright, they had to be
motivated and they had to be motivated." The quote was one he used time
and again with EMBA classes to emphasize that motivation was the most
important factor and that with it an individual can overcome any
obstacle.
Throughout his career, Richmond served as a mentor to many former
students who kept in touch with him and came to him for advice until
the end.
Richmond’s leadership philosophy is summed up in the speech he
delivered to the first MBA class that began under his deanship. He
promised them "first, an environment that fosters integrity, obedience
to all legal rules and restraints and to the precepts of humanity and
decency which we all recognize. Second, social responsibility. …
Third, excellence of performance. The attitude that whatever is worth
doing is worth doing well. No, let me go beyond that. Whatever is worth
doing is worth doing optimally. That is, it should be done in the very
best possible way that it can be done."
During his career he authored three major books: Operations Research
for Management Decisions, 1968; Statistical Analysis, the third edition
of which was published in 1997; and Regulation and Competition in Air
Transportation, 1961. He also served as talk show host of "Nashville
Business Edition" from 1984 to 1986 on Nashville television station
WDCN.
He served on the boards of IMS International, Ingram Industries,
First American Bank Corp., Winners Corporation, Corbin Limited and
Hartmann Luggage. He was a member of the American Statistical
Association, American Economic Association, Institute of Management
Science, Operations Research Society of America, of the honorary
business society Beta Gamma Sigma and of OWE (Out of Work Executives).
He was on the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of
Nashville and Middle Tennessee and of Temple Ohabai Shalom. He belonged
to Temple Ohabai Shalom and Congregation Micah.
Richmond was an avid skier, ballroom dancer and square dance caller.
He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Evelyn Ruth Kravitz Richmond
of Nashville; daughter Phyllis Gail Richmond of Arlington, Texas; sons
Douglas Emerson Richmond of Vernon, Vt., and Clifford Owen Richmond of
Nashville; and one grandchild, Travis Ezra Richmond of Vernon, Vt.
Arrangements will be handled by Marshall Donnelly-Combs. Services
will be at Congregation Micah, 2001 Old Hickory Blvd, at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 31. In lieu of
flowers, the family asks that contributions be sent to the Owen
Graduate School of Management, Congregation Micah or Temple Ohabai
Shalom.
Media contact: Melanie Catania, (615) 322-NEWS
Melanie.catania@vanderbilt.edu