After almost 30 years of tireless work in the field of corporate diversity, R. Roosevelt Thomas was still enthralled with his occupation.
He had plans to unveil a new theory on the workings of diversity this week, and was preparing for his latest speaking engagement.
“He was so excited about it,” said Ruby J. Thomas about her husband’s work and continued research.
Thomas died suddenly on May 17 after collapsing at home in Decatur. He was 68.
A funeral is planned for 11 a.m. Friday at Friendship Baptist Church, Atlanta. Carl M. Williams Funeral Directors is in charge of arrangements.
Thomas was well-known for his work in corporate diversity. He helped develop and implement the Coca-Cola Co.’s Diversity Leadership Training Academy of Atlanta in 2000, and was constantly sought out by businesses looking to change their corporate culture.
Ruby Thomas said her husband spent the last 29 years of his life helping people and companies embrace true diversity. She said he wanted people to know diversity not only encompasses race, ethnicity and gender, but also sexual orientation, age, geographic origins and educational background.
“One of his favorite comparisons was between marriage and diversity management,” said Pamela W. Arnold, former president of the American Institute for Managing Diversity Inc., which was started by Thomas in 1984. “He’d say because each person in the marriage was unique and different.”
Before his career in diversity consulting, Thomas was in the academic world.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Morehouse College in 1966, he went to business school at the University of Chicago. With his MBA in hand, he returned to Morehouse to teach, but only stayed two years before he pursued his doctorate from Harvard Business School. After five years of teaching at Harvard, he decided to explore management consulting. Unhappy with the constant travel schedule, he went back to school, but this time as an administrator. In the early 1980s, Thomas was tapped to be the associate dean, then executive dean, and finally dean of the Atlanta University Graduate School of Business Administration.
“While he was dean, it was the pinnacle of our success in the B-school,” said Clay Croom, who was on the search committee at Atlanta University that recommended Thomas. “We had two of the largest MBA classes, with some of the most successful people to ever come out of the institution.”
He stayed at Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University, until he decided to go back to Morehouse, where he launched his diversity nonprofit in 1984, then called the Institute for Corporate Leadership & Management at Morehouse College Inc. It was believed, at that time, to be the nation’s first research and management development institute devoted to the upward mobility of minorities and women, according to a 1985 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.
“What the institute is about is not just becoming a charitable organization, but providing a real asset to corporations that can have a real bottom-line effect for the workforce,” Thomas said in an interview for that article.
Arnold said she believes his goal was accomplished.
“He was such a forward thinker,” she said. “He put together a process and a philosophy that I have used across major corporations and organizations. And I say it is forward-thinking because it still works.”
In addition to his wife, Thomas is survived by sons, Shane Thomas of Decatur and Jarred Thomas of Decatur; daughter, April Thomas of Cambridge, Mass.; brother, Robert Potts Thomas of Chattanooga, Tenn.; and one grandson.
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