Former ICPSR executive director Richard Hofferbert dies
Richard I. Hofferbert, who served as ICPSR’s executive director from 1970 to 1975 and an ICPSR Council member from 1967 to 1969, died July 6 at his home in Venice, Florida.
According to the Blalock Report of the ICPSR Review Committee issued in 1989, Hofferbert’s accomplishments as leader of the consortium were manifold: He saw ICPSR through a period of relative fiscal stringency; developed important international relationships; and oversaw a broadening of archival holdings.
Hofferbert was a faculty member of the University of Michigan Political Science department, and came to Michigan from Cornell University. He went to the State University of New York at Binghamton after Michigan.
Hofferbert was involved in the comparative study of public policy at state and local levels of government. He developed the dataset Socio-Economic, Public Policy, and Political Data for the United States, 1890-1960 and a comparative counterpart that covered selected demographic, social, economic, public policy, and political comparative data for Switzerland, Canada, France, and Mexico.
Hofferbert was also instrumental in making the German Electoral Data Project -- a collaboration among ICPSR, the Zentralarchiv, and ZUMA -- a success during the 1970s. He also launched the Comparative Political Party Manifestos project with Hans-Deiter Klingemann and Ian Budge.
Before becoming executive director, Hofferbert served on the ICPSR Council for three years.
Hofferbert is survived by his wife Rose and two sons.
Jul 7, 2011