Obituaries

Recent Obituaries
In Memoriam Archive

Lucien Smartt ’48

For his thesis, Lucien wrote about the great Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist and philosopher Vilfredo Pareto, who established the Pareto principle, also known as the 80–20 law, which holds that a small proportion of the cause accounts for the bulk of the effect. In other words, 20% of the customers generate 80% of the business, 20% of the students ask 80% of the questions, and so on, you listen to 20% of your records 80% of the time, and so on.

During his years at Reed, Lucien confessed to being “mightily influenced by Sandy MacDonald ’46 and his infectious enthusiasm for the 18th century.” Lucien became wild about baroque music. After earning a bachelor’s degree in history from Reed, he went on to get an LLB degree from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He served in the United States Army from 1950 to 1953, mostly with the 45th Division Artillery in Korea. Lucien joined Public Utilities Reports, Inc., in Washington, D.C., in 1963, and retired as the editor-in-chief in 1990. He is survived by his sister, Joyce Ray.

Appeared in Reed magazine: December 2017

comments powered by Disqus