Craftsman of Words, Gentle Leader, Lover of Ideas

Kent Lineback died peacefully, from complications of pneumonia, at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on April 2, 2024 with his wife, Carol Franco, by his side.

Lowell Kent Lineback was born November 19, 1943 in Bremerton, Washington, the son of Shirley Frank and Ethel (Shellberg) Lineback.

Kent’s family relocated to Anderson, California in the late 1940s, where he graduated as valedictorian from Anderson Union High School in 1961. He left to attend Harvard College, where he studied History, earning his B.A., with Honors, in 1965.

In 1964, he married Linda (Lichacz), who had just begun her nursing career at Massachusetts General Hospital. After graduating from Harvard in 1965, he began working for UPI.

It had been his dream to go into broadcast journalism, but due to the Vietnam War, he went on to earn his MBA at Boston College in 1968. He then went to work for Sterling Livingston, at the Sterling Institute in Boston, as a consultant running management development projects for Fortune 500 companies until

1972. After that, he managed business administration for PBS. In 1975, he led the marketing team for the Boston-based professional publisher Warren Gorham & Lamont. In 1980, Kent began work in marketing at

New England Business Services (NEBS) in Groton, Massachusetts, a national manufacturer and seller of business products. There, he built a successful computer products start-up before leading the company through a strategic reorganization. While there, Kent also self-published a subscription-based newsletter and wrote a book about the craft of managing people. In 1992, marking a career shift, Kent joined Harvard Business School Publishing, where he co-led the production of film and video management-development programs until 1997.

Kent met his soulmate, Carol Franco, in the early 1990s, while they both were working at Harvard Business School Publishing. They married in 2004, and after living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, they moved to Santa

Fe, New Mexico in 2005. Kent, a selfdescribed “New Englander at heart,” discovered a fresh love for the high desert setting, embracing the rugged beauty and artistic riches of his new home.

In the late 1990s, he began collaborating with more than 20 authors of business books. His first book, co-authored with Randy Komisar, was The Monk and The Riddle, a Business Week bestseller and later selected by the magazine as one of the “Best Business Books of All Time.” Other authors or co-authors he worked with included several Harvard faculty members, CEO of L.L.Bean, Leon Gorman; former Michigan Governor and current U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm; and numerous prominent academics and consultants. He was co-author, with Harvard Business School Professor Linda Hill, of Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader, as well as a co-author of Collective Genius along with Linda Hill, Greg Brandeau, and Emily Stecker Truelove. His co-authors expressed that “For the many who read his work, Kent was a gifted writer.

For the few who were blessed to work with him, he was a compassionate leader, patient teacher, and friend. He often astonished us with his uncanny ability to take complex or underconceptualized ideas and make them clearer, stronger, and more accessible.”

A diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease in the early 1980s inspired Kent to start writing a newsletter for people living with Crohn’s and IBS called “The Community,” which he continued publishing for several years, enlisting his children to fold and stuff it into envelopes. Crohn’s Disease, and the after-effects of the many surgeries associated with it, were challenges that Kent courageously managed for the rest of his life.

When Kent’s three children went off to college, he wrote to them weekly with his beloved fountain pens on his trademark blue stationery, letters that imparted heartfelt encouragement and pearls of wisdom (“Kentisms”).

Kent is survived by his wife, Carol Franco of Santa Fe, New Mexico; his former wife and the mother of his three children, Linda Lineback of Carlisle, Massachusetts; his sister Marcia Keeline and husband Robert of Palo Cedro, California, and their three children; his son Eric Lineback and wife Carla of Dummerston, Vermont; his daughter Lauren Lineback and husband Joe Cavicchi of Arlington, Massachusetts; his daughter Lesley Shearer and husband Rich of Scarsdale, New York; his cherished grandchildren, Ted, Phoebe, and Hadley Shearer, Nate Cavicchi, and Alina Lineback; as well as many colleagues and friends too numerous to name.

Donations may be made in his memory to the National

Book Foundation (https://www. nationalbook.org/make-a-donation/) or the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation (https://www.crohnscolitisfoundation. org/).