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The Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Lille (ESC-Lille) last week awarded honorary Ph.D. degrees to two pioneers in project management: Russ Archibald and Alan Stretton. The awards were announced at the International Programme and Project Management Workshop in Lille by Dean and General Manager Jean-Pierre Debourse. Both Archibald and Stretton were awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Strategy, Programme and Project Management.

Before presenting the award to Archibald, Debourse explained:

Russell Archibald

Russell Archibald has more than 50 years of broad international experience in program and project management, as well as operations and engineering management. Russ is the co-author of Network Based Management Information Systems (PERT/CPM) (Wiley, 1967); plus articles and papers presented at the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the International Project Management Association (IPMA) meetings in North America and Europe. He holds Bachelor of Science (University of Missouri) and Master of Science (University of Texas, Austin) degrees in mechanical engineering, is a Fellow and Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) of the Project Management Institute (member No. 6, one of the five original trustees), a Fellow of the Association of Project Management/APM-U.K./IPMA, and is listed in Who's Who in the World.

Stretton holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil Engineering) from the University of Tasmania, and a Master of Arts (Mathematics) from Oxford University, where he studied as the Tasmanian Rhodes Scholar for 1948. In presenting Stretton's award, Debourse said:

Alan Stretton

Professor Alan Stretton has over 35 years experience in engineering including 5 years with the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority and 26 years with Lend Lease Corporation where his responsibilities included management of special projects and directorship of their construction subsidiary, Civil & Civic. From 1988 Alan has been first a Visiting Professor and then Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney where he established the Masters in Project Management which commenced delivery in 1989. This was the first academic programme in project management in Australia and one of the first in the world. Beginning work in engineering project management in the early 1950’s, Alan has been directly involved in and has influenced the development of modern project management. He was Chairman and later Director of the Standards Committee of the Project Management Institute from 1989 to 1992, and continued as a member of the Committee until 1996 when the first edition of the PMBOK Guide that has had a major impact on project management was published. He was a member of the Steering Committee for development of the National Competency Standards for Project Management, which were endorsed by the Australian Government, also in 1996. He was the first to use Critical Path Method in a commercial context in Australia, developing time, cost and financial controls that encompassed the operations of the entire company and helping to secure recognition for Civil and Civic as the leading Australian project management organization. Professor Stretton's publication record includes more than 90 refereed papers, book chapters, technical journal articles, conference papers and other articles and has made many invited keynote and other presentations.

Ironically, in accepting these honorary degrees for their pioneering achievements, Archibald and Stretton pioneered yet another major step in the professionalization of project management: they were recipients of the first honorary degrees ever awarded in the field of project management.

PMFORUM congratulates Dr. Russell Archibald and Dr. Alan Stretton on their outstanding achievements.