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Dr. W. Hoffman Obituary

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Dr. W. Hoffman

West Newton, MA

February 23, 1943 - December 6, 2018

Dr. W. Hoffman Obituary

Dr. W. Michael Hoffman , 75, of West Newton passed away on December 6, 2018 after a brief illness. Michael, the Hieken Professor of Business and Professional Ethics, was the founding Executive Director of the W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics located at Bentley University in Waltham. Michael grew up in Paris, Kentucky where he attended Paris High School. He received is BA in 1965 from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and earned his PhD in Philosophy from the The Five College Consortium at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His teaching career began at Hiram College in Ohio in 1969, and then he accepted a position at Bentley University in 1974. He founded The Center for Business Ethics in 1976 - one of the first centers of it’s kind in the world. In 2016 Bentley renamed it The W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics in his honor. Hoffman had devoted most of his career to the study of business ethics, publishing 16 books and more than 100 articles. He received several lifetime achievement awards from professional organizations and was named Humanist of The Year in 2007 by the Ethical Society of Boston. Michael was a natural athlete – scoring 42 points in one basketball game at Paris High, a record which he held for over 25 years. In his adult life he went on to excel in racquetball as well as tennis, where he affectionally earned the nickname “The Golden Retriever”. Michael is survived by his wife of 45 years, Anne Bliss Hoffman and his daughters Alison Bliss Libuda (James) and Elizabeth Innis O’Neil (Matthew) and three grandchildren Casey Libuda, Cooper O’Neil, and Charlotte O’Neil. The family requests that if desired, memorial donations may be directed to Bentley University – Hoffman Center for Business Ethics, and sent to: Attn: Liz Siladi, University Advancement Office, Bentley University, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02452. A memorial service is planned for the spring.

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Events

Event information can be found on the Official Obituary of Dr. W. Hoffman.