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PIONEER. TEACHER. CONSULTANT. GURU. Each of these words describes Joseph M. Juran, the man who became a giant in the world of quality management and changed how companies do business.
His lofty goal: to make things better. He wanted to improve everything he touched. Whatever he discovered along the way, he wanted to share. For Juran, there was always an idea to develop and build on.
"He always told me, 'Never be without a project/" Juran's son, Donald, said days after his 103-year-old father died Feb. 28. "And he never was."
Over the course of Juran's remarkable 75-year careerduring which, at age 24, he headed a corporation's large inspection division, traveled millions of miles to share his message on quality, and founded a quality consulting organization at 75-he never let his age dictate the projects he tackled:
* The elder statesman of total quality control consulted, lectured and wrote well into his 90s.
* Up until his death, he was working to complete another textbook, this time collaborating with one of his grandsons, David Juran. David Juran, along with Joseph De Feo, the Juran Institute's chief executive, said they plan to finish the book.
"His belief was that you always have a project to keep your mind going," De Feo said. "He always had something to do."
Maintain focus. Keep active. Never stop exploring-all in the name of quality.
"A typical trait of Dr. Juran (was) that whatever the age, he remained young because he never stopped listening," Tito Conti, president of the international Academy for Quality, wrote in a tribute to Juran.
Conti went on to describe an encounter with Juran in the 1990s at a standards forum in Europe. Juran sat in the front row for Conti's presentation, hungry for data and details.
"He did not want to engage his clear mind in the 'diagnostic journey' before getting a firsthand description of the facts and the environment in which they were emerging," Conti wrote.
Early years
Juran's thirst for discovery was something he could never seem to quench. Born Joseph Moses Juran on Dec. 24, 1904, in Romania, Juran immigrated to Minneapolis with his family eight years later to escape poverty and the threat of violence against Jews.
Nothing came easily, and his...