Professor Emeritus and Founding Director, ISBM
2102 Woodlawn Avenue
Wilmington, DE 19806
302-655-7037
igross7037@comcast.net

Irwin (Irv) Gross, in 1983, joined the faculty of Penn State's Smeal College of Business Administration as Professor of Marketing, co-founded the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) and became its Executive Director. The ISBM has grown to be the world's leading academic center devoted to business-to-business marketing. In 1996, Dr. Gross relinquished those positions, becoming Professor Emeritus at the University while retaining a seat on the ISBM Advisory Board.

Prior to 1983, Dr. Gross capped a twelve year career with the DuPont Company by being named Marketing Research Fellow. He is the only person in DuPont ever to have attained the status of Fellow for research in Marketing. Previously, he had been the Director of DuPont's Corporate Marketing Research Division, an in-house consulting and research organization.

Earlier, Dr. Gross served as associate professor of marketing and management science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and was the Foundation Professor of Marketing at Monash University in Melboure, Australia, only the second professor of marketing ever in the country. He also held positions as Senior Scientist in the Operations Research Division of Scott Paper Company and Weapon Systems Analyst with Hughes Aircraft Company.

Dr. Gross holds bachelors degrees in Arts and Electrical Engineering from New York University, an M.S.E.E. from the University of Southem Califomia, a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Case Westem Reserve University and an honorary M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

He is the author of a prize-winning doctoral dissertation, papers and articles in the academic and trade literature and co-author of the book, Advertising Measurement and Decision Making. Dr. Gross was elected to the Council on Marketing Research of the Conference Board, to the National Council of the Institute of Management Sciences (now known as INFORMS) and to the Chair of the College on Marketing of that society. He also served as President of the Market Research Society of Australia.

Dr. Gross has lectured in many universities' executive programs, including Northwesten, Wharton, Columbia, M.I.T., Southem Califomia and Penn State. His seminar, Value and Pricing Strategy, has been given over fifty times for over twenty major corporations. He also maintains a consulting practice dealing principally with pricing and business strategy. His clients have included ALCOA, Corning, DuPont, Eastman Chemical, Exxon Chemical, PPG, US WEST, XEROX, and others.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, and a 50 year resident of Wilmington, Delaware, Dr. Gross has three children pursuing careers in business-to-business marketing and six grandchildren who are not yet. He is a volunteer SCORE counselor and served on the boards of directors of the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts and The Wilmington Drama League.  His activity in community theater is an avocation that dates back to his college days when he performed as a stand-up comedian.