In Memoriam

Jan E. Clee As dean, he transformed WSBE By Sandra Hume '92

Jan Clee, who led the Whittemore School of Business and Economics through a period of creativity and growth, died on Dec. 21 in Portsmouth, N.H., after several years of declining health.

Born in Indonesia in 1928 to a Dutch sea captain father and an Indonesian mother, he spent several years in his teens in a Japanese prison during World War II because of his Dutch heritage. Only a quarter of the prisoners survived the incarceration. Afterwards, he joined the armed forces in Holland and ultimately resumed his education at the University of Utrecht and later Case Institute of Technology, where he earned a doctorate in organizational behavior.

In 1960, he moved to the United States and worked as a consultant for companies like Standard Oil and Westinghouse. Two years after UNH decided, in 1964, to create a business school, he was hired as dean. He would spend the next decade building WSBE like a work of art.

"He was a masterful dean," says John Haskell '63, '65G, then assistant dean. "Not only did he bring an entirely different concept of what a business school should be, he got people excited about it." Many recall this era as a "Renaissance" period, with Clee encouraging faculty members to do research and consult as well as teach. "Jan was a maestro," says Lee Irwin, professor of economics from 1963-90. "Business was his laboratory. It was such a creative period. He left a wonderful jewel in the university."

Clee had a lifelong passion for art and a vast modern art collection. Works of art were "living, breathing entities" to Clee, says sculptor Gary Haven Smith '73. The parties he hosted in his Dover apartment were legendary, mixing politicians, faculty and local artists. He was even known to hire off-duty police officers to direct traffic, says Haskell, whose apartment was in the same building. When a party was scheduled, "I knew to get home early and secure a parking spot." It was in his apartment that Clee housed Abbie Hoffman and the rest of the "Chicago Three" in 1970 while the university, students and the courts argued over whether they could speak on campus.

After he stepped down as dean, Clee traveled worldwide as a consultant. He retired to Portsmouth in the late '90s, and in 2000 he was the first recipient of the Laurence F. Whittemore Distinguished Service Medal.

As dean and elsewhere, Clee's greatest gift was interpersonal. "The only person I ever saw who was better at it was Bill Clinton," says Irwin. "He could read any room and make people feel comfortable, no matter who they were."

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