Dr. William Cron, associate dean of Graduate Programs and Research and the J. Vaughn & Evelyne H. Wilson Professor of Marketing at the Neeley School of Business at TCU, has been awarded the Selling and Sales Management Lifetime Achievement Award by the sales special interest group of the American Marketing Association (AMA). The award is given each year to an outstanding scholar who has made meaningful contributions to the field of academic sales by consistently publishing sales research in top journals, being recognized for teaching excellence, encouraging sales as a career choice and fostering the professional development of others, and adding appreciably to our understanding of a sales topic or area through scholarship.
 
Cron’s research dates from 1978 and spans many dimensions of sales management and strategy. He was named one of the ten leading contributors to sales force research literature in 1991, and co-authored a chapter on sales force strategy in The Wiley International Encyclopedia of Marketing, published in 2010, outlining that much of a product’s value comes from communication and collaboration with the sales force.
 
He has won several teaching awards and has published numerous scholarly articles in the area of sales management in premier journals including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing the Academy of Management Journal, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes  and Journal of Applied Psychology. Cron has worked closely with several industry associations and companies including the Health Industry Distributors Association, the American Association for Homecare, Baylor Health System, Haggar Apparel Company, Johnson and Johnson, Samsung Electronics and more to implement best practices in  marketing.
 
Cron’s awards include Neeley Graduate Teaching Awards in 2005 and 2003, Excellence in Manuscript Reviewing from the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management in 1994, Best Manuscript Reviewer from the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science in 1990, and Outstanding Faculty Researcher from the SMU Cox School of Business in 1988.   He serves on the board of the Health Industry Distributors Association Foundation, American Marketing Association Foundation and Midmark Corporation.