Business Professor, 90, Dies

George E. Bates, Williston professor of investment management emeritus at the Harvard Business School, died last Friday at his home in Camden, Maine. He was 90.

Bates received his M.B.A. at the Business School in 1925 and joined the faculty the same year as an assistant dean.

During his 40 years at Harvard, he served as editor of both the Harvard Business Review and the Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin.

A long-time resident of Concord, Mass. Bates moved to Maine after he retired in 1965. He was chair of three planning committees in Concord, an officer of the town's antiquarian society, and a vice president of Emerson Hospital.

Bates authored two books on investment management and published his papers in several volumes between 1931 and 1966.

Bates also served as a senior adviser to the business administration institute of the University of Istanbul in Turkey, as well as to the Tunisian government.

During the World War II, he was director of instruction of the U.S. Naval School's business department.

Bates cultivated a keen interest in Byzantine coins and was honorary curator of Byzantine coins and seals at the Fogg Museum.

After returning from a dig in Sardis, Turkey, he published a book on coin collecting, A Byzantine Coin Collection.

Colleagues of Bates remember him as a respected member of the faculty who valued diligence and hard work. They say he possessed "a restrained but very real" sense of humor.

Bates was known to use innovative teaching methods to emulate real-life applications of business. He taught a class concerning the "Management of Mrs. Heald," in which students managed and directed the business affairs of an imaginary person.

Bates also developed a reputation among his colleagues as a "man of great family loyalty." Friends said he was never available on Weekends because he was spending time with his children.

He was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars, the Somerset Club, the Country Club of Brookline and the Vine Book Hunt Club. He was also a fellow of the American Numismatic Society and an honorary trustee of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Bates is survived by his wife, Louise (MacMillan); two sons, George P. of Weston and Nathaniel B. of Concord; and six grandchildren.

A memorial service in the Harvard Business School chapel will be held at a later date.