Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business marketing professor Jeffrey Danes died on the evening of May 26, according to an email sent to Orfalea students.
Danes worked in Orfalea for nearly 30 years. He served as a professor until his retirement in June 2016. He continued to teach a few classes after retirement as an adjunct professor, according to Orfalea Interim Associate Dean Stern Neill. Danes also served as the business administration department head during the 1980s, according to university spokesperson Matt Lazier.
His research focused primarily on the incorporation of text analysis with quantitative decision tools. Danes graduated from San Jose State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He went on to get his Ph.D. in communications with an emphasis in statistics and mathematical modeling at Michigan State University.
Since his start at Cal Poly, Danes was also on the Technology Advisory Committee for the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce and was co-developer for several marketing companies.
Danes’ work has been published in W3C’s World Wide Web Journal (O’Reilly & Associates), the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Business Research, among many other publications.
“We’re all saddened by this sudden loss. While I’d known Jeff for only nine years, he’s been a part of Cal Poly for 30 plus,” Neill said in an email to Mustang News. “There was a sweetness about Jeff, and I admired his focus on innovation, his career accomplishments and the life he’d made for himself at Cal Poly.”