IN MEMORIAM

Robert Hal Mason

Professor of Management, Emeritus

Los Angeles

1929 – 2005

Robert Hal Mason died on September 3, 2005, after a long battle with the repercussions of a series of strokes. He joined the UCLA Anderson School faculty in 1966 and was a professor of policy when he suffered his first stroke in 1986, which eventually forced his retirement in 1991.

 

Mason saw active duty (1951-53) with the U.S. Army in Korea during the Korean War.

 

He received his doctorate in international business economics from Stanford University (1967), where he served as industrial economist and program manager for the Stanford Research Institute. He earned both his master’s in economics and statistics and his bachelor’s in agricultural economics from Colorado State University.

 

For both research and teaching, Mason’s main interest initially was international business. His investigations took him and his family all over the world, including the Philippines, Western Europe, and Brazil. In addition to numerous professional papers, he published four books in the area of international business. Later in his career, he became intrigued by technology transfer and directed his efforts to understanding how less developed countries adapt to produce products of similar quality to more advanced nations.

 

During his career at the UCLA Anderson School, Mason was very active on the teaching front, instructing a variety of courses that included: the Ph.D. program, the full time M.B.A. program, the Executive M.B.A. program and the School’s Executive Education Program. He also served on the faculty committee that designed the two-year full time M.B.A. program (1972) and the faculty committee that designed the Executive M.B.A. program (1980).

 

During his academic career, Mason served on many university-wide committees. He was a fellow of the Academy of International Business and served as a consultant for governmental agencies including the World Bank.

 

Mason’s wife of 47 years, Kay, credits his determination as the deciding factor in his survival of his first stroke, which devastated his language ability. She is most proud of how hard he worked to regain as much of his language facility as he could. Eventually, he was able to write again to the point where he developed stories based on his pioneer ancestors and his early work for the Denver and Rio Grand Western Railroad.

 

John McDonough