A memorial service for Marketing Professor Karl Mann, who died Wednesday, Feb. 1, at University Medical Center, takes place this evening at Partlow Funeral Home in Lebanon. He was 54.

Karl Mann

Visitation is from 4 to 6 p.m., followed by the memorial service. The funeral and interment will take place in West Virginia.

"The Marketing Club and the students were his real passion," says Robert Niebuhr, dean of the College of Business. "He was a students' professor. He frequently took them to conferences and case competitions and other activities. Wednesday night, eight of his students brought dinner to the family, which I know they really appreciated. There's a lot of emotion in Johnson Hall right now."

Mann, who joined the TTU faculty in 1988, was advisor of the TTU Marketing Club, which won the American Marketing Association's 2001 international case competition. The club was also named top regional chapter in 2000. Mann was a former vice president of the AMA's Collegiate Division; in 2000, he won the group's International Faculty Advisor award.

In 2004-05, Mann was elected president of the AMA's Collegiate Division, leading some 13,000 student members and 350 student chapters. The American Advertising Federation named him its Distinguished Advertising Educator in 2003, and he was also a recipient of the Institute for Supply Management's William Burns Award for outstanding contributions to the supply management field.

"He was really dedicated to his students and alumni," says Mark Stephens, chairperson of Economics, Finance and Marketing. "He worked very hard to help them get good jobs in their fields through his contacts in Nashville and elsewhere. And he was an outstanding faculty adviser for the Marketing Club. They have done some really amazing activities. He took them to their national meeting every spring, and they're planning to go this spring, too, because he would have wanted them to."

Marketing students canceled a club fund-raiser originally scheduled for yesterday, gathering instead to reminisce about their adviser.

"Our education was first and foremost his priority," says Marketing Club President April Williams. "He drilled it into us, even when we didn't want to hear it. The things we remember most were the things he always gave us a hard time about. He made a point to get to know his students and how they are both in class and outside. I work two jobs, and he always told me I needed to spend more time on school. It's a huge loss to us as a family in the College of Business and in the Marketing Club."

Mann's research interests were in business-to-business marketing and supply chain management, as well as marketing research and quantitative methodology. He earned a Ph.D. in marketing, statistics and management sciences from Virginia Tech in 1985. He earned an M.B.A. from the University of Tennessee and an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from West Virginia University. Before joining the TTU faculty, Mann worked for 10 years as a chemical engineer for the Mobil Oil Corporation.

He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Mann of Lebanon; a daughter, Pam Trakas of Gallatin; a sister, Jane McGuire of Franklin; and a nephew and several nieces.

Partlow Funeral Home is located at 602 S. Cumberland St. in Lebanon. At I-40 Exit 238, turn right and continue to the funeral home, which is on the left across from Wal-Mart.

The family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, any contributions be made to the Dr. Karl Mann Marketing Scholarship Fund, College of Business, Box 5023.