Forty years ago in the Idaho hills Donald Kirk David's Dad handed out some advice: "Take all the time you want until you're 30, to learn about what you are going to do from the time you are 30 to 50, so you can do what you want to do after you're 50." The follow-through to this counsel has been near letter-perfect. Comfortably settled since 1942 in the top job at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Dean David staggered his career with eight years of teaching and learning at the School and fifteen subsequent years of fortune-accumulating in Manhattan financial circles. At 52 he is simultaneously "the" reason for the Business School's zooming success and a director of such enterprises as Standard Brands, General Electric, and R. H. Macy's.

Although his corporate connections not him what one colleague terms "a large income," Dean David earnestly insists that these are completely subsidiary" to the underlying interest in education which returned him to Cambridge. Central features in the School's program--the famed case system for one--depend on the support of business leaders. He calls his own business activities psychologically crucial in winning tycoon response.

Dean David's genius for getting along with all sorts of individuals and getting them to do what he wishes constitutes a towering organizational talent. Directorates so respect the corollary good judgement that for the Dean's convenience they have arranged their meetings to fall consecutively in a week-long stretch once each month. They turn to him especially when a problem involving people arises. He is said to have chosen at least three corporation presidents. A behind - the - scenes power with Averell Harriman, Dean David may well expect offers of a Cabinet post.

Meanwhile he makes his headquarters in Morgan Hall with an arduous daily routine punctuated by cross-country telephone conversations and interviews with visiting firemen. He mixes a wicked martini (olive included) evenings 'at home.' Weekends with his wife Both he points his Cadillae toward Osterville on the Cape. There in a twelve-room hideaway (one forthcoming complete with tennis court will overlook the sea) he can unbend briefly. Dean David likes gardening: behind the custom-tailored exterior and million-dollar glad-hand he is fundamentally informal and original-thinking. "He works with stuffed shirts very well indeed," Associate Dean Stanley Teele has noted, "but he doesn't like 'em."