My friend Peter Starbuck, who has died aged 88, was an expert on Peter Drucker, the father of modern management.
Peter wrote six books and more than 90 papers on Drucker, and was an honorary member of the Peter Drucker Society Europe, whose president, Richard Straub, would always say to researchers: “If in doubt, ask Peter Starbuck.”
He came to Drucker’s work in the mid-1970s while running a building firm he had co-founded. Enamoured with Drucker’s theories on management, he used them in his own business and later, once the company had been sold, studied Drucker’s ideas more deeply for a PhD at the Open University, setting himself up as an authority on the subject.
Peter was born in Birmingham to Herbert, an aircraft engineer, and Gladys (nee Gittings), a housewife. He grew up in Wolverhampton, where he did his secondary schooling at Wolverhampton technical college before training as a quantity surveyor with the building company Sir Alfred McAlpine, interrupted by national service in West Germany.
In 1963 he became general manager of the small building firm of Walter Watkin in Oswestry, Shropshire, staying in the town for the rest of his life.
In 1966, aged 29, he co-founded a new company, Watkin, Starbuck and Jones, with Walter Watkin and Watkin’s son-in-law Brian Rhodes-Jones. Known as WSJ, it built schools, hospitals and thousands of homes with Peter as its CEO and driving force.
WSJ was sold in 1987 as one of the Midlands’ biggest building firms, and in 1987 he was appointed adviser to 10 Downing Street on affordable housing, a role he fulfilled until 1991.
Having discovered Drucker in 1974, Peter began his PhD in 2005 and was awarded his doctorate at the age of 71 in 2007. In 2022, aged 86, he received an honorary degree from the University of Chester for his outstanding contribution to management research. Over the years he presented online lectures to the Global Peter Drucker Forum and gave talks to universities and business schools.
Among his books were Peter F Drucker: The Landmarks of His Ideas (2012), Drucker’s Management by Objectives (2018) and Management: It’s Common Sense, co-written with his friend the TV entertainer Jeremy Beadle in the early 2000s and published in 2022. He also wrote academic papers for The International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy and penned Drucker’s obituary for the Guardian.
Peter’s first marriage, to Janet Musson, ended in divorce. With his second wife, Heather (nee Williams), whom he married in 1987, he travelled adventurously around the globe, visiting 180 different countries and territories, mainly to explore the natural world.
He is survived by Heather, by two sons, Robert and Matthew, from his first marriage, stepdaughters Dawn and Hayley, nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
