Emile Libresco, former Harder Professor at Skidmore, dead at 85

Former Harder Professor Emile Libresco ? business executive, civic leader, amateur athlete, and educator known for his friendly, animated personality ? died Aug. 30 in Stamford, Conn. He was 85.

A distinguished professor and psychologist, Dr. Libresco joined the Skidmore community as the F. William Harder Professor of Business in 1994 and held the title until 1997. His senior-level management experience in several disciplines informed his teaching, research, and writing. Martin Canavan, associate professor of management and business who chaired the department while Dr. Libresco was on the faculty, recalled his engaging personality. ?He was cheerful, upbeat ? a friend of the students,? said Canavan, adding, ?Emile was a person with many significant life experiences and a man of many interests in the academic world and beyond.?

Canavan said that Dr. Libresco?s energy and enthusiasm for athletic endeavors was widely known. The former Harder chair was an avid skier and tennis player who was featured in Connecticut Magazine in his late 60s as an example of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle among older people.

Bernard Kalb, former New York Times and CNN reporter who was Dr. Libresco?s college classmate, called him ?eloquently pugnacious.?

Prior to coming to Skidmore, Dr. Libresco taught at the Columbia University Business School, the University of California at Irvine, the University of Vermont, and the Fordham University Graduate School of Business Administration, where he was area chair of marketing. Following his Skidmore appointment, he taught at New York University?s Stern Graduate School of Management and then returned to Fordham, where he continued to teach marketing classes into his 80s.

During the first half of his career, Dr. Libresco was a senior executive at such firms as the American Can Co., International Paper, and Norton Simon Industries. At his first corporate assignment, General Baking, he was director of industrial relations and responsible for negotiating more than 600 labor contracts with more than 100 local and international unions. He shifted to marketing when he joined Hunt Wesson Foods (later Norton Simon) in 1960, and was promoted to vice president of marketing there in 1962. Corporate assignments at American Can and International Paper followed. While with American Can he developed and oversaw construction of the first pulp and paper mill free of water and air pollution. He also worked to desegregate mill town facilities in the Deep South.

In 1973 he left the corporate world to work as a consultant in both the public and private sectors with such industries as textiles, shipping, agriculture, toys, musical instruments, and computer software.

Dr. Libresco was also a licensed psychologist and served on the editorial advisory boards of several journals.

A graduate of the City College of New York, where he majored in economics and psychology and served as a campus stringer for The New York Times, Dr. Libresco earned an M.A. degree in social foundations and an Ed.D. in social foundations and social psychology at Columbia University.

Dr. Libresco?s survivors include his son, Josh, of San Rafael, Calif.; daughters Nicole of Arlington, Mass., and Andrea of Mineola, N.Y.; brother Leonard (Marilyn) of Castro Valley, Calif.; five grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.

The family has suggested that memorial contributions be made to the Mosholu (Bronx) Branch of the New York Public Library at New York Public Library, Bronx Borough Office, 310 East Kingsbridge Road, Bronx, NY, 10458, attention: Robert Bellinger; or to the Pequot Library, 720 Pequot Ave., Southport, CT, 06890, attention: Elizabeth Hanusovsky.