Roger Ward Babson, remembered today largely for founding Babson College in Massachusetts, was an entrepreneur and business theorist in the first half of the 20th century. He also founded Webber College, now Webber International University, in Babson Park, Florida, and the defunct Utopia College, in Eureka, Kansas.
He was born to Nathaniel Babson and his wife Ellen Stearns as part of the tenth generation of Babsons to live in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Roger 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, Inc..
On March 29, 1900, Babson married his first wife, Grace Margaret Knight, who died in 1956. In 1957 he remarried to Nona M. Dougherty, who died in 1963. Babson died in 1967.