Longtime HBS Prof, 87, Dies

Philip H. Thurston, a Harvard Business School professor emeritus who taught at the school for 31 years, died March 24 at his Massachusetts home. He was 87.

Thurston joined the HBS faculty in 1958 after receiving his doctorate in business administration at the school. As a faculty member, Thurston taught in both the MBA and Executive Education programs while also serving in administrative roles.

Colleagues remembered Thurston last week as honest and warm.

“He was a native of Maine...and it seemed to me he personified the good traits that I associated with ‘Mainiacs’—directness, no nonsense,” said colleague and close friend Charles M. Williams. “And unlike the prototype, he had a gentleness of manner,” Williams, the Gund professor emeritus of finance and banking, said.

Thurston was named the Chapman professor of business administration in 1979. From 1978 to 1981, he also served as a head of production and operations management for HBS.

In the last decade of his career, Thurston joined the Executive Education Program and served as course head for the Owner/President Management Program, according to Williams.

“Phil and the group of down-to-earth ‘doers’ developed an almost immediate rapport and they appreciated him,” said Williams. “He could deliver messages from academia at Harvard in a way that would ring true with them as ground-level executives.”

An authority on manufacturing and planning, Thurston actively engaged his students and made use of the interactive format of the HBS case method, Williams said.

“The combination of personal warmth, strong intellectual honesty, absence of self-centeredness, and the fact that he was interested in the students seemed to come through to them,” he said.

Norman A. Berg, emeritus professor of business administration, walked to HBS each morning with Thurston from their neighboring Garden Street apartments when both men taught at the school.

“I don’t think he really sought outside recognition or approval,” said Berg last week. “He was very happy to devote his time to his students and to his classes.”

Thurston was teaching even before arriving at HBS. From 1942 to 1946, he served in the US Army Air Force, where he taught flight instructors how to train pilots.

After earning his masters in management from Columbia Business School, Thurston led the effort to incorporate new computing technologies at General Electric. He was one of the first at GE to use the original IBM mainframe computers.

“He had considerable work experience before he came to our faculty and because of that, he brought a very useful and practical perspective to his classes,” Berg said.

Following his retirement in 1989, Thurston continued to serve as an emeritus professor at HBS as well as on various committees.

Thurston is survived by his wife, his son, his sister, and two grandchildren. A memorial service will be held today at First Parish Church in Weston.

—Staff writer Madeline W. Lissner can be reached at mlissner@fas.harvard.edu.