Milton Chen

The College of Business has lost a scholar and a gentleman. Those are words often used to describe Milton Chen, professor emeritus of Information and Decision Systems, who died suddenly of a heart attack while in Taiwan March 21. He was 72.

In his capacity as president of the North American Taiwanese Professors Association, Professor Chen had traveled to Taiwan to campaign for the incumbent president, Chen Shui-bian. His wife May was at his side when he passed away in a Taipei hospital.

“Milton was an outstanding colleague,” noted IDS Professor James Beatty. “He was highly respected and admired by all his colleagues. He always had kind words to say to others, was cheerful and pleasant, loved to hear and tell jokes -- all in extremely good taste -- and was a very humble man.”

Milton Chen joined the university in 1977 and taught courses on quality and productivity. He earned his Ph.D. in management science and statistics from New York University, where he was a student of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, internationally renowned teacher and consultant in managing for quality and statistical methods.

Dr. Chen’s research and teaching were in the areas of Deming Principles, total quality management (TQM), Just-in-Time (JIT) systems, Japanese management and productivity, Taguchi Methods, quality function deployment, operations research, statistical analysis, and Baldrige assessment.

He consulted and lectured widely in the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan and published various articles in professional journals and management magazines. He also taught and conducted research at Yale and Georgetown universities, was an adjunct professor at the UCSD School of Medicine, and consulted with the Naval Personnel Research and Development Center.  Dr. Chen  was selected to serve on the Board of Examiners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards program in the mid-1990s.

This past summer he helped the College host a conference co-sponsored by the Japan Association for Management Systems, which included management information systems professors from Japan and San Diego.

In 1992 Dr. Chen won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the SDSU Alumni Association. He served as co-director of the Japan Studies Institute at SDSU and as program director of the Institute of Quality and Productivity in the College of Business.

“Everyone whose lives he touched had the highest and kindest regard for Milton,” Beatty said. “He was a scholar in the true sense, an international expert, and a wonderful friend to all. He will be greatly missed, especially his warm smile, his friendly hello, his professionalism,  his contributions to SDSU, and his contributions to his students’ knowledge.”

Professor Chen is survived by his wife May and two daughters, Connie, a physician in residency at USC, and Irene, an M.D./Ph.D. student at Harvard University.

Reflections on Milton Chen from
Executive MBA Alumni

The world has lost a truly remarkable man, who not only touched everyone he met, but changed them in a positive and caring way. Dr. Chen was truly and without question one of the highlights of my career at SDSU. --Mike Rook, EMBA VII

Milton was a wonderful person and brought a unique and fun approach to his teaching. He will be missed. --Christine Probett, EMBA VI

I was reminded of Dr. Chen's exercise regime - getting EMBA VII to do jumping jacks was a comical way to reenergize the group. His enthusiasm and real-world knowledge of quality made the course a pleasure. --Leslie Cole, EMBA VII

I was so sorry to hear about Milton. He was one of those men who truly loved what he did. It flowed through his entire being.

Milton left a significant impression on me. He was one of the first people that reinforced my beliefs in quality and the quality process. He understood and emphasized that it was not good vs bad, but right vs wrong. He understood that the quality function was an intimate part of a business. It was not an objective police group, but a way of thinking an acting that every person in a company must adopt to be successful. Quality is not an organization standing outside the business, but one of the foundational columns that supports a company as it grows. He was right and we proved that his beliefs work, both at Sony and at Callaway.

Milton is one of the people that I think about regularly. I still use his materials for reference. I thoroughly enjoyed my limited time with him. His passions for his work and his family were evident and strong. I remember when his daughter was receiving accolades for her scholastic achievements. He was so proud of her. He was beaming. I am sorry I never met her. I am sure she knows how proud of her he was and how much he loved her.

I will always remember Milton as a passionate man. His commitment to life, family and business philosophy were unswerving. His smile was always warm and inviting. He knew how to balance life and enjoy it. He was right and could prove it; in a world where doing it right is difficult and the patience to nurture the results is often lacking.
--Bob Conlin, EMBA V