Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business & Management In Memoriam

Show All

Hide All

Prof. Abraham Mehrez, 1947-2001

Abraham Mehrez (b. Haifa, Dec. 22, 1947) died on February 5, 2001 after a courageous struggle with cancer. A Full Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he held the George Shrut Chair in Decision Making and Risk Management, Prof. Mehrez was found er and first Dean of the School Business at the University. He received his PhD in operations research from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Professor Mehrez published more than 200 articles in operational research, production management, logistic systems, decision-making, and risk management journals. Prof. Mehrez was known as an enthusiastic football fan. In recent years he was also involved with football as a consultant, a radio commentator and researcher.

Prof. Mehrez served the University as Deputy Rector and twice served as Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management for six years. Among his other academic activities related to management fields, he initiated the University's School of Management (today the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management) and served as its first dean. He held various appointments to academic committees at BGU, including the Central Committee, academic development committees, head of the academic members committee and more.
He initiated and created numerous academic development plans for the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, including creating a curriculum for Human Resources Management, an Information and Systems degree program, and plans for an MSc for industrial managers in the private sector (factories, industries), as well as for career officers in the IDF and the chemical industries.

At the national level, he was a member of a number of different governmental committees in the public sector, including the Council for Higher Education of Israel, where he served as a member of sub-committees for colleges, and academic consultant for colleges and universities in Israel. For thirteen years he was also a consultant for the Security Information Services of the IDF for logistics, operations management and cost benefit analysis of field intelligence systems.

His more than 200 articles in operational research fields, production management and logistics systems, decision-making, and risk management appear in a number of prestigious international publications, among others.

Finally, Prof. Mehrez served as a member of the Editorial Boards of six leading international journals in scientific management fields, operation research and production. He was a consultant to international companies and organizations in Israel, the United States and Canada. He was a consultant to Dead Sea Works for thirteen years and served as Director for the Public Interest in Brome Ltd. He was also Honorary President of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental Management, Locational Decisions and Regional Planning (ISEMLORE) and Editor-in-Chief of Management Science and Regional Development: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal. Prof. Mehrez was affiliated with various universities including Case Western Reserve University, MacMaster University, Johns Hopkins University, Tel-Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Alexandra (Alexa) Yellin 1943-2005

Alexa Yellin, the Faculty's first Executive Administrator, was a special and inspiring individual in the founding and development of the Faculty of Business and Management; her mark is still felt to this day.

After a diverse and successful career as lieutenant colonel in the IDF, she received her BSc and MSc in the Department of Industrial Engineeri ng at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She then became the Department Engineer, focusing primarily on incorporating information systems technology.
When the School of Management (today the GGFBM) was founded in 1996, Alexa played a major role in its establishment, planning and implementing the school's work procedures. She became the School's first Executive Administrator.

Due to her management and organizational acumen, as well as her rare technological abilities, Alexa succeeded in building an exemplary organizational fiber with built-in pioneering information systems, replicated soon after in other BGU faculties. Among other achievements, she was the first to establish a “paperless office," and she developed the automated student records system. She was also the first to install advanced clerical programs for daily use.

Prof. Ayala Malach-Pines, 1945-2012

The following tribute appeared in the British Journal of Management (BJM) article Stress and Burnout in Bicultural Teams in Hi-tech Industry by Ayala Malach-Pines and Nurit Zaidman of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Department of Business Administration, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Corresponding author email: zeidman@som.bgu.ac.il

Ayala crossed arms.jpg

Professor Ayala Malach-Pines was a clinical, social and organizational psychologist. She received her BA from the Hebrew University and her MA and PhD from Boston University. She wrote, taught and consulted about topics that are in the heart of existence of each one of us: love, jealousy, stress, burnout, gender and the meaning of life. Professor Malach-Pines was a faculty member, Chair of the Department of Business Administration and Dean of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Ayala's parents were born in Poland and escaped the Nazi persecutors through Russia, ending up in Kyrgyzstan, where Ayala was born. When Ayala was 5 years old, she and her parents arrived in Israel. Her parents opened a bookbinding shop and a bookstore in the backyard of their house. Ayala was immersed in books and reading from early childhood and, later, in her extensive writing. Her contribution to research is documented in 11 books that she wrote, 3 books that she edited (with Professor Ozbilgin), 103 published papers and 35 book chapters. Her legacy is carried on by her 22 graduate students and by us, her colleagues, who were inspired by her daily presence.
Her research interest reflects not only a vast scope of research topics, but also a genuine curiosity and interest in people. She studied people from a breathtaking range of lifestyles and occupations: prostitutes, managers, nurses, blue-collar women, teachers, entrepreneurs, elite female athletes, prison personnel, small-business owners, police officers, high-technology entrepreneurs, engineers and global team members.
In the area of management, Ayala's main research interests were: stress and burnout; career choice; working women; entrepreneurs and managers; and recently also global multicultural teams. She promoted and practised an interdisciplinary approach in her research, often collaborating with researchers coming from diverse disciplines and methodologies. She was a pioneer in the study of burnout, and her contribution in this area is well recognized worldwide. Inspired by the existential theory, Malach-Pines and Keinan (2005) demonstrated that people report low levels of burnout, even when working in highly stressful situations, when they feel that their work is important and meaningful. In recent research, Professor Malach-Pines and colleagues tested the existential perspective on burnout of expatriates (Silbiger and Malach-Pines, 2014) and as presented in the manuscript below in bicultural teams.
Sadly and unexpectedly, Professor Ayala Malach-Pines passed away in September 2012.

View short film (in Hebrew) in memory of Prof. Ayala Malach-Pines

Prof. Kenneth (Kenny) Preiss, 1937-2010

“No one handed us the University on a silver platter," declared Professor Emeritus Kenneth (Kenny) Preiss of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management and the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management. As someone intimately involved in the conception, long gestation and birth of BGU, he was one to know.

Raised in South Africa, where he earned a degree in Civil Engineering, Preiss first came to Israel in 1958, served in the army and then designed civilian buildings, including some in Beer-Sheva.

After earning a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering in England, Preiss taught at the University of Illinois in Urbana. But despite an offer of tenure and U.S. citizenship, in 1966 he made the crucial decision to return to Israel and join what was then the Negev Institute for Arid Zone Research.
Founded with the help of UNESCO, the Institute, which was under the auspices of the Prime Minister's Office, conducted research in desert science and technology; Preiss was given responsibility for the technologies of desalination, solar energy and geophysics. But Institute Director Joel Schechter, former Mayor David Tuviyahu and others dreamed of creating a university. Tuviyahu brought Preiss into the group that would establish the precursor to BGU – the Institute for Higher Education in the Negev.

The first courses taught were in the fields of biology and mechanical engineering. Lecturers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Technion in Haifa taught together with the few academics then at the Institute and elsewhere in the Negev. “We would fly people down to give lectures; when experimental facilities were needed, a taxi drove the equipment back and forth from Haifa." Classes were held at HIAS House in central Beer-Sheva, but they soon ran out of space and lectures were held in a row of small shops.

Despite support at the top level, including then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, there was considerable opposition – from other universities, the Treasury and government officials – to the idea of a university in Beer-Sheva.
“The name Beer-Sheva University," said Preiss, “suggested something local and provincial. The name University of the Negev, which had a more universal significance, was chosen." After David Ben-Gurion passed away in 1973 the name was changed to “Ben-Gurion University of the Negev."

Kenny held the Sir Leon Bagrit Chair of Computer-Based Global Industrial and Scientific Development until his retirement (2007). He was proud to have led a core of University researchers who, with two dozen engineers and scientists from the Negev, made significant contributions, from 1968-1988, to the technical combat capability of the Israel Defense Forces Southern Command. “Many of the solutions developed were implemented into the whole IDF, and one in particular, to remove mines in front of tanks, became standard equipment also for the U.S. and many other armies," he said.
What motivated Preiss to make Israel his home? A poem from his school days back in South Africa included the line “'Be still prepared to die.' I understood this meant that I should not waste even a day on superficialities. From a very early age, it was clear that the most important thing for me was to contribute to Israel and the future of the Jews. Not only me. My colleagues at the Negev Institute for Arid Zone Research really felt that we were pioneering scientists. This was Zionism at its best."
"In memoriam" by Yoram Reich, Ofer Shai