Of Note
Baker Dies in Plane Crash
Last December 1, a plane piloted by George F. Baker III (MBA ’64), a retired financier and philanthropist, crashed off the coast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. Authorities presumed that the 66-year-old Baker died in the accident. The Baker family has had an extraordinary impact on Harvard University for many generations, beginning with Baker’s great-grandfather, whose donation of $5 million in 1924 made possible the construction of the Harvard Business School campus, with Baker Library as its centerpiece. At HBS, among other activities, Baker served on the Board of Dean’s Advisors from 1980 to 1993. During the past few years, he was a generous supporter of the renovation and expansion of Baker Library.
Student Real Estate Champs
A team of six MBA students from HBS won the fourth annual National Real Estate Challenge, held at the University of Texas in November. Teams from sixteen MBA programs spent two days evaluating a case involving an investment in a high-end condominium project. The HBS students took home the $5,000 first prize, with the University of California, Berkeley, placing second, and the Wharton School third.
MD/MBA Program Launched
Harvard’s new five-year, MD/MBA joint-degree program was formally launched at an HBS reception in November. Keynote speaker and Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella (PMD 57, 1989), who holds an MD degree, told his audience, including the seven students currently enrolled in the program, that the initiative will produce “a new generation of leaders in health care.” Graduates of the program, whose enrollment will increase over time, will be encouraged to practice medicine before becoming senior executives in hospitals, health-care organizations, and private-sector firms specializing in medical products and the life sciences.
Nelson Mandela’s Right-Hand Man
In addition to conducting research, the HBS Leadership Initiative engages in other activities as well. Last November, for example, along with the HBS Africa Business Club, it served as the host for an event featuring African National Congress leader and former South African parliamentarian Ahmed Kathrada. A fellow “alumnus” of Robben Island and a longtime friend of and adviser to Nelson Mandela, Kathrada visited the HBS campus where he spoke to students from across Harvard University who had assembled for the occasion.
Discussing the role of business in South Africa’s development, Kathrada stated that investment is sorely needed to help reduce unemployment, one of South Africa’s most pressing problems. A positive sign, he said, is the increasing involvement of blacks in business. HBS professor Linda Hill, the event’s moderator and faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative, described Kathrada as a true leader who “has committed his life to improving the lives and livelihood of the marginalized and the poor.”
In Memoriam
HBS professor J. Keith Butters, an authority on finance and taxation, died in Lexington, Massachusetts, in December. He was 90.
The Thomas D. Casserly Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, Butters retired from the HBS faculty in 1986 after 43 years of service, during which he chaired the Finance Unit (from 1969 to 1973) and taught in both the MBA and the Executive Education programs. He also played an influential role as the Business School’s representative to a number of University committees that affected faculty across all of Harvard.
