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IN MEMORIAM

IN MEMORIAM

Jack D. Rogers

Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

Berkeley

1919—2002

 

Jack D. Rogers, professor emeritus in the Walter A. Haas School of Business, was fatally injured in an automobile accident on January 15, 2002. Professor Rogers had joined the faculty in 1950 and taught there until he retired in 1983. Jack was known as a good teacher and as the mainstay of the business school's strength in production management through the 1950s and 1960s. As the field evolved into management science he continued his role as a key faculty member in his field. Jack Rogers was born in Nebraska in 1919. He earned his B.S. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1942 and the M.B.A. in 1947. In 1953 he received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the faculty of the business school at Berkeley as a lecturer in 1950. He moved through the ranks and was appointed professor in 1972.

 

Jack was chair of the faculty group in Production Management from 1957 to 1965 when the field was merged with what later became Management Science. He was responsible for not only much of the teaching in production but curriculum development and administration as well. These were especially critical years in the development and metamorphosis of the field of production management nationally and internationally as automation and computerization swept into practice. Jack was greatly respected by his students in part because he was especially diligent about keeping his courses in this dynamic field up to date. One manifestation of this feature of his teaching was his early recognition of the importance of quality management after it was first emphasized by Japanese manufacturers. As the faculty mainstay in the production area, Jack had responsibility for advising Ph.D. students in production as well as the M.B.A. students who were fulfilling their BA 299 projects in production. (The BA 299 project, an applied research project, was for many years a requirement in the M.B.A. program in lieu of a master's thesis.)

 

Jack Rogers made a major contribution in the administration of the business school. He was director of the M.B.A. program for several years. His performance in that role was lauded by the then dean of the Graduate Division, Sanford "Sandy" Elberg:

 

Close association over a period of several years long ago convinced me that Professor Rogers was one of the very finest graduate advisors a department could hope to have. He combined as few others do those qualities that make a graduate department not only academically excellent but also induce in graduate students a sense of belonging, of forward movement in their studies, and of accomplishment. He especially has been a pillar of support to us in the maintenance of the highest standards of academic performance.

 

Jack was deeply involved in the launching of the business school's evening M.B.A. program in San Francisco in the early 1970s. This program was initiated in part in response to then President Charles Hitch's call for the development of what was initially termed the "extended university" effort to serve students who could attend only evening classes because they were employed during the day. Initially using the facilities of UC's Hastings College of the Law, the program became a major part of the business school's total offering. Jack Rogers played a key role in seeing this important program through its early days.

 

Professor Rogers published a number of articles, including one in Management Science which was commonly cited in the literature of the field: "An Algorithm and Computation Procedure for Locating Economic Facilities" (1967). He was a reviewer for the California Management Review and for Management Science and was active and visible in the professional community. He served on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Management as faculty sponsor of the student chapter of that organization. He was also a valued contributor to an informal faculty seminar on probability and the redistribution of income.

 

Frederick E. Balderston

Austin Hoggatt

Richard H. Holton