Remembering Dr. Lyman Porter: a Pioneering Scholar in the Field of Organizational Behavior and Founding Member of AUA’s Board of Trustees

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Dr. Lyman William Porter, the former dean of the University of California, Irvine, Graduate School of Administration (now known as the Paul Merage School of Business) and one of the founding members of AUA’s Board of Trustees, died on July 2, 2015 in Newport Beach, California. He was 85.

Lyman Porter was one of the primary founders of the study of organizational behavior. He taught and mentored generations of academic and industrial leaders, and played a major role in ensuring that organizational behavior would become an important component of modern business education.

Dr. Porter was born in 1930 in Lafayette, Indiana. He attended Northwestern University, graduating in 1952. He continued his education at Yale University, where he earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 1956. In the same year, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he rose to full professor of industrial psychology.

In 1967, Dr. Porter was appointed assistant dean of the Graduate School of Administration (GSA) at the University of California, Irvine. He served with great distinction as dean of the school from 1972 to 1983.

He brought his wealth of knowledge and experience to AUA at its beginning, providing wise counsel to the University and particularly to the College of Business and Economics, which has developed into the largest of AUA’s colleges. A founding members of AUA’s Board of Trustees, he was closely engaged with the University during his long tenure as a trustee.  “Lyman Porter was invaluable in keeping us on track financially, always with good humor,” said William Frazer, Founding Chair of the Board of Trustees. He will be greatly missed by his family and his colleagues, both in the US and in Armenia.