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General, Admiral, Greeter, Host
Donald K. David, the School’s third dean, was a 1919 graduate of the School — HBS’s first “homegrown” dean. His family owned a department store in Moscow, Idaho, and David had a natural bent in that direction. After graduation, he signed on as a Marketing instructor, and helped create a new Retail Store Management course in the early 1920s.
In 1927, he accepted the post of executive vice president of the Royal Baking Powder Company, thus beginning a 14-year stint in industry, which he concluded as president of American Maize Products Company. Returning to HBS in 1941, David spent six months as Dean Donham’s “successor in training,” after which he assumed the deanship.
During his early months as dean, David mainly carried out the wartime programs that Donham had set in motion. But he soon began putting his own mark on the School, especially in the context of planning the postwar curriculum.
In a letter to a friend, David summarized his early experiences in the deanship: “As you know, we have been training only men for the services these last years…With five instructional programs going, each with its own faculty and administration, the place is really a six-ring circum. I have had to be general, admiral, greeter, host, and money-raiser all at the same time, but the job is a fascinating one, and I have enjoyed it, even though it is the most active and pressing one I have ever had.”
