Robert H. Guest, professor of organizational behavior, emeritus, of the Tuck School, died at Harvest Hill in Lebanon, N.H., on September 27, 2005, at the age of 89. Bob Guest's former colleagues describe him as a creative, caring man with a big smile and, according to Emeritus Professor Wayne Broehl, "a twinkle in his eye." His boss and close friend Emeritus Professor John Hennessy, dean of the Tuck School from 1968 to 1976, says of Guest, "He had deep instincts about the quality of life and the creative potential of human beings."
After graduating from Amherst College, Guest earned a master's degree from Columbia in 1941, served in the Navy during World War II, then became a field examiner for the National Labor Relations Board in Atlanta and, in 1947, associate director of the Yale Technology Project. Guest went on to earn a doctorate in industrial sociology from Columbia in 1960 and also received a doctor of humane letters degree from Amherst in 1974. In 1960, Hennessey invited him to join the Tuck faculty as a professor of organizational behavior.
Guest was a pioneer in the study of labor and its relationships with management in the new age of automation. He authored and coauthored numerous articles and several books, including The Man on the Assembly Line, written with Charles R. Walker and published in 1952. That book is considered one of the foremost sociology books of the 20th century and led to "quality of work life" issues entering into labor/management discussions. The book asked, "To what degree can—or should—men be ‘adjusted' to the new environment of machines, and to what degree is it possible to adjust or rebuild that environment to fit the needs and personalities of men?"
Guest's scholarship in sociology served as the basis of others' research, and he traveled the world to elaborate on his novel views of work life in the machine-driven industries of the mid-20th century. During the course of his career, Guest was invited to universities in Scotland, Japan, England, and New Zealand, as well as many in the United States, and he consulted with businesses and industry in Great Britain, Canada, Sweden, Brazil, New Zealand, and the U.S.
At Tuck, Guest initially introduced a first-year course, gradually switching from teaching applied sociology to using case studies that he himself researched and wrote. David McKane T'69, one of his former students, describes these cases, which were concerned primarily with quality of work/life issues, as excellent "stories about New England textile mills and guys working all night." Says McKane, "Bob was way ahead of his time in this area."
Later on, Guest led a small seminar in which he arranged for his students to diagnose and consult in real work settings at companies in need of advice. As a member of the Tuck faculty, Guest served as a catalyst, a sociologist with "perfect pitch" in his field, but he considered himself somewhat of an outsider in the MBA business.
After his retirement from Tuck in 1981, Guest, a zealous Democrat, entered the political arena with a determination to make a difference on issues he considered important. Elected to the New Hampshire Legislature in 1988, Guest introduced a physician-assisted suicide bill along the lines of the Oregon law and sponsored a program to help first-grade children with their reading skills. On the local level, he became a tireless licker of envelopes and a general helper.
In his years in Hanover, Guest wrote The Brief History of the Amos Tuck School (1981) and threw himself into outside activities with characteristic gusto. Appointed a U.S. national jumping judge, he delighted in officiating at the old ski-jumping competitions on the 14th hole of the Dartmouth golf course. He became a pilot and flew solo around New England. He and his wife, Kate, traveled extensively, including a world tour in 1973–74. In later years (largely, said Guest, because of Kate's extraordinary prowess and low handicap), he was invited to join Scotland's renowned Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, where he was affectionately addressed by all as "the professor."
When asked about Robert Guest, former Tuck students remember a smiling professor "smoking his beloved pipe" and chatting during breaks for coffee and doughnuts in Stell Hall. At those times, "You never knew what he was going to come out with," says McKane. "He was a very colorful guy."
A driving force in the early days of machine/worker thinking and research, Guest was, nonetheless, a modest, unassuming person. Marion Copenhaver, a close friend in politics, recalls that, "Despite being respected and honored around the world for his avant-garde thinking and research, Bob was never anything but himself—just good old Bob Guest." In a speech at Guest's retirement in 1981, Hennessey said of Guest, "Behind one of the world's most relaxed social manners lies a basic, honest, humanistic philosophy, leveraged by a tendency never to take himself too seriously—even when everyone else does."
