Roger Babson

Remembered today largely for founding Babson College in Massachusetts, Roger W. Babson (1875-1967) was an entrepreneur and business theorist who rose to great fame in the first half of the 20th Century. Part of the 10th generation of Babsons to live in Gloucester, Massachusetts, he attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for investment firms before founding, in 1904, Babson's Statistical Organization, which analyzed stocks and business reports. It continues today as Babson-United Investment Reports.

Babson also had a quirky side, most notably in the his founding of the Gravity Research Foundation, which established a research facility in the town of New Boston, New Hampshire after Babson determined that this location was far enough away from the city of Boston to survive a nuclear attack.