A brief obituary recollecting my association with Professor Bala Balachandran – Harry Kraemer Jr (Forme CEO Baxter)

Professor Bala Balachandran was my teacher, mentor, colleague and dear friend. I met him in my first class at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in the Fall of 1977. He was clearly one of the brightest, most hard-working and most popular professors at Kellogg. He was always available for questions and had an amazing ability to simplify complex topics. In addition, he made learning fun, with a wonderful sense of humor!!!

I was very fortunate to remain in close contact with him after I graduated from Kellogg. Even when I was the Chairman and CEO of Baxter International, he would invite me to sit in on his classes and continue to learn from him. I was always honored when he asked me to be a guest speaker in his classes..

When I retired from Baxter, he and Dean Donald Jacobs encouraged me to return to Kellogg and become a professor, which has been a wonderful blessing.

I always admired him for the example he set as a father and family man. He was extremely proud of his family and when I asked him how he was doing, he would immediately talk at great length about Sid and David's most recent accomplishments.

I will miss him very much, but I believe we will meet up again in the next life.