Dillard Eugene Bird (October 8, 1906 – January 2, 1990)[1] was an American industrial and consulting engineer, founder and President of Dillard E. Bird Associates, consultants to management in Cincinnati, Ohio.[2] He was known as "veteran in the field of personnel administration,"[3] and as the 10th president of the Society for Advancement of Management from 1949 to 1951.[4]
Bird was born in 1906 in Covington, Kentucky, son of Nora M. Bird (1874-1963).[5] He had obtained his AB from the University of Cincinnati in 1933 under Ralph C. Davis,[6] and his MBA from the Ohio State University in 1938.[7] In 1951 he also obtained his PhD at Ohio State with the thesis, entitled The relation of stabilization within the business organization to guarantee of work or wages.[8]
Around 1943 Bird founded his own firm, Dillard E. Bird Associates, consultants to management in Cincinnati, Ohio.[11] Among others he was expert for the United States Office of the US High Commissioner for Germany in 1937,[9] the National Wholesale Druggists' Association in 1949,[12] and the SEE Foremanship Foundation in Dayton, Ohio in 1951.
One of his notable employees was the Carl Hartley Elliott, who was junior management consultant in 1947–48, and later professor and president of the Trine University. Since 1942 Bird also taught personnel administration and labor relations at the evening college of the University of Cincinnati.[11]
Dillard Eugene Bird married Mary Carmichael Andrews, daughter of James H. M. Andrews and Esther McKinley (Bender) Andrews.[14] They had a son, Dillard Eugene Bird, Jr. (1941-2015).
