David Birch

1937 - 2024

David Birch

Peterborough, NH - Eminent academic and entrepreneur David Latourette Birch died on 23 October 2024. He was born on 6 May 1937 in White Plains, New York. He lived in Chappaqua, New York and attended Hotchkiss School, graduating in 1955. He then went to Harvard College and graduated in 1959 and from the Harvard Business School in 1962. He and Louisa Lehmann were married in Emanuel Church in Dublin, NH on 2 June 1962. They moved to La Jolla, California where David worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1963 they returned to Cambridge, MA where David started work on his Doctorate in Business Administration at the Harvard Business School (awarded 1966). David taught at Harvard Business School for six years. He then went to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directed the Program on Jobs, Enterprise and Markets. David and Louisa's daughter Sarah Birch was born on 5 December 1963, and their son Christopher Paul Birch was born on 5 April 1969. While still working at MIT, David founded Cognetics Inc in Cambridge, MA, which he ran for 30 years.

During this period David Birch gained worldwide recognition for his innovative research demonstrating for the first time the disproportionate role of small businesses in creating jobs, as detailed in his 1979 book The Job Generation Process and his 1987 volume Job Creation in America: How Our Smallest Companies Put the Most People to Work. His research employed artificial intelligence algorithms and 'big data' analysis that was far ahead if its time. He is also known for having developed the Birch Index, an economic indicator of employment, and he invented the term 'gazelles' to describe rapidly-growing small businesses. In 1996 he was awarded the inaugural International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business by the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering and Sciences.

After retirement, David and Louisa spent their time in Dublin, NH and Seabrook Island, South Carolina. In 2014, they moved to Rivermead in Peterborough, NH. David is survived by his wife Louisa Lehmann Birch, his daughter Sarah Birch, his son Christopher Paul Birch, his sister Melissa Birch and his grandchildren David Nathaniel Birch and Heidi Lehmann Birch.

In lieu of flowers, donations should be sent to the Monadnock Conservancy in Keene, NH.