B-School Emeritus Professor, Livernash, Dies at Age of 77

Business School Professor Emeritus E. Robert Livernash, renowned in the fields of collective marketing and labor relations, died of cancer earlier this week at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was 77 years old.

Colleagues and family say Livernash, who acted as the first president of the Iran Center for Management Studies (ICMS) in Teheran from 1972 until 1975, considered his post in Iran his greatest career accomplishment.

A graduate school modeled after the case-study program at Harvard, the ICMS closed in 1980, after remaining open longer than any other private school during the political upheaval in Teheran.

Hired by the B-School in 1953, Livernash became the first Albert J. Weatherhead Jr. professor of business administration in 1965.

Livernash retired after teaching at the B-School from 1953 to 1926. He then taught at the School of Public Health (SPH) until 1981. After reaching the retirement age at the school, he taught extension school courses until the fall of 1985.

"He just couldn't stop teaching," said Robert McKersie, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management who studied under Livernash.

Former President Eisenhower and former Secretary of Labor James Mitchellapproached Livernash after a major American steelstrike in 1959 and asked him to coordinate a studyprobing the problems in the steel industry.

The resulting report on collective bargainingremained diplomatic. "He had the respect of bothsides; both the management of the steel companiesand the steel union," said Livernash's sonStephen.

During the last several years Livernash alsotaught biannual seminars in industrial relationsfor the Labor Policy Association in Washington,D.C.

Born in Colorado, the professor graduated PhiBeta Kappa from the University of Colorado in1932. He received his master's degree in 1934 fromTufts University and his Harvard Ph.D. in 1941.

"It was the goal of my father to live longenough to see [Halley's] comet," Stephen Livernashsaid of his father, who was born in a year thecomet appeared. "He died 10 days past his 77thbirthday."

Livernash leaves his wife, Virginia (Hall), andsons Stephen E. of Arlington and Robert T. ofWashington D.C.

There will be a memorial service Monday,February 23 at 3 p.m. in the First Parish Churchin Harvard Square