Reg Baker, 1947-2024

Reg Baker, former COO of Market Strategies and Executive Director of MRII, has died after a brief battle with cancer. Active in AAPOR, CASRO and ESOMAR, he was also elected to the Market Research Council's Hall of Fame.

Reginald Paul Baker was born in 1947 in Ogdensburg, NY, the eldest of four children and the first in his family to attend college. He graduated in History in 1968 from a private Jesuit institution, LeMoyne, and in 1976 earned a PhD in History at the University of Pittsburgh, where he taught for several years, met his future wife Pat, and developed an interest in statistics and computer science.

Baker spent almost 40 years in the industry, with a focus on the application of new technologies to methodology and operations. He joined NORC (the National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago as VP of Research Operations, in 1984, and in 1995 moved to Market Strategies, Inc in Southfield, MI where he was COO until his first 'retirement' in 2012. During this time he became increasingly active in both the North American and international market research communities and associations. Later he was a consultant to ESOMAR's Professional Standards Committee as well as the US Census Bureau, and co-chaired AAPOR's Task Force on Non-Probability Sampling. He served on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Market Research and taught on the MR programs at both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

From 2014-18 he was the Executive Director at the Marketing Research Institute International (MRII), working with the University of Georgia to create the Principle Express family of courses, offering affordable education to market researchers worldwide. MRII honoured him by launching the Reg Baker Award in 2020 - he was also elected to the Market Research Council's Hall of Fame and was named a Laureate by the Insights Association in its inaugural year.

Outside work Baker had three passions: photography, music and bird-watching. According to his family:

Every spring he looked forward to the new migratory season, and his obsession led him to sojourns across North America in the quest for more birds, from the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge in Washington state to Point Pelee National Park in Ontario, Canada. Despite his many accolades in market research, Reg's proudest accomplishment may have been his birding 'life list'. After his true retirement in 2022 Reg updated his LinkedIn status to 'Gone Birding'.

The family asks that anyone wishing to commemorate Reg's life consider donating to the American Birding Association www.aba.org , or the National Audubon Society www.audubon.org .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.