Lyman Porter, former UCI business school dean, dies

Lyman Porter, a former dean of the UC Irvine Graduate School of Management (now known as the Paul Merage School of Business) died July 2 in Newport Beach, the university announced. He was 85.

Porter, born in 1930 in Lafayette, Ind., graduated from Northwestern University in 1952. He earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Yale University in 1956 and later became a professor of industrial psychology at UC Berkeley.

In 1967, Porter was appointed assistant dean of what was then UCI’s Graduate School of Administration, where he was instrumental in starting a Ph.D. program. He was dean of the school from 1972 to 1983. During that time, it changed its name to the Graduate School of Management, for which Porter led the creation of an MBA program.

Long after becoming emeritus in 1992, Porter continued to teach and research. The Dr. Lyman W. Porter Colloquium Room in the Paul Merage School of Business was named in his honor this year.

A celebration of Porter’s life is scheduled for Sept. 25 at the Merage School. Memorial donations for the Porter Colloquium Room may be made at www.uadv.uci.edu/FriendsOfLymanPorter or mailed to the UCI Foundation, 100 Theory, Suite 250, Irvine, CA 92617.

--Rob Vardon