By Wendy Lee, Globe Correspondent, 6/19/2004

George F.F. Lombard was a quiet man with tenacity and loads of patience. He once sat, day after day for hours, at Macy's, watching mothers rifle through racks of girls' dresses and 20 clerks ring up sales. He turned his research into a book that helped establish the field of organizational behavior.

Dr. Lombard, former senior associate dean of Harvard Business School and professor of human relations, died in his Weston home Thursday. He was 93.

Dr. Lombard had once planned to be a banker. But while he was sitting on a bench waiting for an expected job offer, the dean of the business school called him aside and offered to make him assistant dean. He joined the Harvard faculty and never left, even chairing a faculty group for years after his 1977 retirement.

''He was an excellent listener, always famous for that," said Paul Lawrence, a Harvard emeritus professor of organizational behavior. ''He really drew people out and helped them think through their own problems. He was a reserved person. He was a quiet leader, but one that was most highly respected."

The Newton native attended Milton Academy and Harvard College, graduating in 1933 with a degree in economics. He received his master's degree two years later; and a doctoral degree in commercial science in 1942, using his Macy's research as his thesis. Dr. Lombard served as associate dean for academic programs at the business school for 15 years before his retirement.

A Weston resident for 66 years, Dr. Lombard was someone who made up his own mind, his daughter, Emily Lombard Hutcheson, said. Even at 85, he continued to plow his own driveway every winter, she said. Well into his 70s, he biked wherever he could, and split wood himself to save oil. Dr. Lombard was the person in the family who took care of details, whether it was handing out allowances or remembering to change the clocks in the house, Hutcheson said.

''He always took care of things. If somebody died he was always the one writing obituaries. He was the person who did things quietly, in the background, but always efficiently done," she said.

She described her father as a quiet, stoic man. Dr. Lombard may have been shaped by his experiences as a student at Dr. River's Open Air School for Boys, which later became River School in Weston, she said. The school did not have any walls -- and was completely exposed to the elements.

''The children sat outdoors in winter," Hutcheson said. ''He learned to write with mittens in the freezing cold. Things like that shaped him into the stoic that he was. He never showed pain."

Besides his daughter, Dr. Lombard leaves five other children: Joshua Lombard of Natick, Esther Danielson of Pocasset, Marshal Lombard of Peterborough, N.H., and Annabel Lombard of Fromberg, Mont.; nineteen grandchildren; and seven great-grand daughters.

A celebration of Dr. Lombard's life was held July 18 at the Josiah Smith Tavern in Weston.

This story ran on page B9 of the Boston Globe on 6/19/2004. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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