In Memoriam, Richard J. Long
| Author | Marc S. Mentzer |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1398 |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
In Memoriam, Richard J. Long
Marc S. Mentzer*
University of Saskatchewan
Richard J. Long passed away on May 15, 2016,at the age
of 65, due tocancer of the pancreas. He wasa significant figure
in human resou rce management in Canad a, and throughout his
career he was deeply involved in this journal and in ASAC.
His résumé lists over 100 academic articles and two
books, New Office Information Technology: Human and
Managerial Implications (1987), and the textbook Strategic
Compensation in Canada (2013), now in its fifth edition.
Rick’s research began by studying employee participation,
which was the subject of his doctoral dissertation, and he later
shifted his attention to workplace technology. In the late 1990s,
the topic of compensation became the focus of his research.
Rick was born and raised in Edmonton, where he
planned to pursue a career as a real estate buyer for an oil
company. With this in mind, he obtained his bachelors and
MBA from University of Alberta. At the age of 22, he
married his wife Patricia, the beginning of a life-long and
happy marriage. In 1973, he accepted a short-term faculty
position at University of Regina, which inspired him to
change his career goals. Rick enrolled in Cornell University,
earning his PhD in arecord-breaking period of only two years
under William Foot Whyte. He then began his career at
University of Saskatchewan, where he achieved the rank of
full Professor at the age of 31, a mere five years after joining
the faculty. When thesubject of retirement arose, Rick would
banter with colleagues that he would never retire, and told
everyone he would keep working as a professor until he died.
As impressive as his résumé is, an academic’s research
record presents only one side of a person. Rick was a caring
and considerate individual, known for a sense of humour
that was sometimes corny and often self-deprecating. He
could appreciate the funny side of any situation and was
quick to laugh at himself.
Sometimes his humour relied heavily on puns. On the
PowerPoint slides he used in a course, one slide explained
a theoretical model with five dimensions. When he got to
the fifth dimension, the slide included an audio clip from
the 1960s pop group, The 5th Dimension. When it was
pointed out that there would not be a student anywhere that
would make the connection and get the joke, Rick
responded, “But what’s important is that Iget the joke.”
Fortunately, his other uses of humour did not rely so
heavily on having an encyclopedic knowledge of 1960s
pop culture.
As a teacher, Rick was best known for his course in
compensation, which students regarded as the capstone
trial-by-fire of the human resource major. The organizing
concept of the course was the reality TV show, Survivor,
complete with “tribal challenges”and other features
borrowed from the series. One alumna, in a letter of support
for a teaching award, wrote that Rick made the course “into
a fun and challenging learning experience that was enjoyed
by both his best and worst students.”He was known for
being available to chat with students, and he formed life-
long mentoring relationships with many of them.
Rick was a person of many interests. As a devoted father
of three sons, he was involved in the Boy Scouts, often
leading overnight canoe trips for scouts. He was also active
as a hiker, even into his 60s, and took pride in being the first
to hike the entire British Columbia portion of the Trans
Canada Trail in an eastward (uphill) direction.
He loved dressingup in costumes and declared Halloween
to be his favourite day of the year, for which he’d dress up as
his favourite character, Zorro. His cars had personalized
license plates, “Zorro”and “Zorro1,”and he would explain
in a deadpan tone how fortunate he was that no one else
had claimed those names from the Saskatchewan licensing
agency.
Among Rick’s many passions was a love of travel. His
goal was that his years of age should equal the number of
countries he visited, a goal which he accomplished, although
*Please address correspondence to: Marc S. Mentzer, Edwards School of
Business, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Email: mentzer@edwards.
usask.ca
Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences
Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration
33: 175–176 (2016)
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1398
Can J Adm Sci
33(3), 175–176 (2016)Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 175
To continue reading
Request your trial