Dr. Russell L. Ackoff, 90, Wharton School official

When the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania hired Russell L. Ackoff in 1964, it didn't get one man. It got an eight-person team.

Director of the Operations Research Group at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland at the time, he brought along seven of his colleagues to form the statistics and operations research department at Wharton. The hiring paid off. In 1971, in London, he received the silver medal of the British Operational Research Society.

Dr. Ackoff, 90, former chairman of Wharton's department of statistics and operations research, died Thursday at Paoli Hospital. The cause was complications from hip replacement surgery performed at another hospital.

He lived in Bryn Mawr for 22 years before moving to the Quadrangle in Haverford this year.

A 1965 Inquirer story reported that "operations research was developed during the Second World War when scientists and military men worked together to adapt radar for use as a defensive weapon. Today, more than a third of the 500 largest corporations in the United States are using operations research."

Besides setting up a new department offering master of science and doctor of philosophy degrees in operations research, the Ackoff team also operated the two-year-old Wharton Management Science Center.

The 1965 story reported that the problem-solving center "carries out from 10 to 15 projects each year in subjects ranging from consumer acceptance of innovation to dental health."

In 1967, he became the center's director.

Born in Philadelphia, Dr. Ackoff earned his bachelor's in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 and served in Army logistics in the Philippines during World War II.

After receiving a doctorate in the philosophy of science from Penn, he was an assistant professor of philosophy and mathematics at Wayne State University in Detroit from 1947 to 1951, when he went to Cleveland to help establish the department of operations research at what is now Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Ackoff was also a consultant to the Philadelphia Planning Commission and a visiting professor of city planning at Penn.

In 1986, he retired from Penn and founded Interact, a strategic planning consulting firm, first at University City and then in Bala Cynwyd.

He later cofounded Adopt-a-Neighborhood for Development Inc. in the Mantua section of the city.

Dr. Ackoff is survived by his wife of 22 years, Helen; son, Alan; daughters Karen Ackoff and Karla Kachbalian; and a stepson, Richard Wald. He was predeceased by his first wife, Alexandra Makar.

A celebration of life took place Sunday. Another celebration is planned at Penn in February.