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Posted to the SIM List on behalf of Edwin M. Epstein:

 I am sorry that this correspondence is occasioned by the sad news of Bill's death. Although Bill was a few years older than I, we were "generation-mates" so far the field of Business and Society and SIM were concerned. Although I don't recall the exact year, we first connected during the late 1960s (fifty years ago!) at the occasional workshops/conferences that brought together the precious few business school faculty members committed to this nascent, ill-defined area of teaching and research and, of course, SIM, which became our formal organizational nexus. Bill, of course, was instrumental in these developments and remained an institutional steward of the field, an always creative intellectual leader whose ideas stimulated and challenged his colleagues and a caring  mentor to generations of SIMians until his final days. I always learned from Bill and over the years a colleagial relationship became a true friendship grounded on shared values, mutual respect,  and our mutual endeavors to promote the well being and longevity of Business and Society - sometimes unsuccessfully - within our respective  institutions (U. Pittsburgh and U.C. Berkeley) and within management education writ large. On top of all that, we simply liked each other. An inextricable dimension of Bill was, of course, Millie - wife, soulmate, collaborator and so much more. For me, Bill's death is particularly poignant since it symbolizes the inevitable depletion of those hearty colleagues who championed Business and Society during very fragile times when it was not the way to win friends and influence people in schools of management. I shall miss him! 

Ed Epstein

Professor Emeritus

Berkeley Business School, Haas, U.C. Berkeley