Béla H . Bánáthy Béla Heinrich Bánáthy ( December 1 , 1919 – September 4 , 2003 ) was a Hungarian linguist , systems scientist and a professor at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley . Bánáthy was the founder of the White Stag Leadership Development Program whose leadership model was adopted across the United States . He was also founder of the International Systems Institute with its innovative " conversation " - oriented conference structure , co - founder of the General Evolutionary Research Group , an influential professor of systems theory and a widely - read and respected author . Biography . Béla Bánáthy was born in 1919 in Gyula , Hungary . The oldest of four sons , his father Peter was a minister of the Reformed Church in Hungary and his mother Hildegard Pallmann was a teacher . Peter Bánáthy had earned the honorary title Vitéz for his service during World War I , and Béla , as his oldest son , would inherit the title . Youth spent in Hungary . When Bánáthy was about six years old , their family informally adopted Tamas Feri . Tamas was about 13 years old and from a poor gardener family . Tamas took Bánáthy on his first overnight camp out with his patrol to a small forest near Gyula . Bánáthy ' s father then became the Scoutmaster of the " small scouts " troop ( similar to American Cub Scouts ) . When Bánáthy was nine years old , he became the troop leader and during one national holiday , led the troop in a parade . About that time , the entire troop spent two weeks camping at a church camp at Leányfalu , north of Budapest . The church groups lived in wooden barracks , but Bánáthy ' s troop stayed in tents , " as Scouts are supposed to do " . The family moved about from Bánáthy ' s birthplace of Gyula , to Makó , Hungary , about southeast of Budapest . He joined the regular scout program of the Hungarian Scout Association and " Csanad Vezer " Troop 92 . The troop had over 50 Scouts and 30 " small scouts " during the 1930s . They held their monthly troop meetings on Sunday in a large gimnazium and met weekly every Saturday as a patrol . Bánáthy reported : " Our weekly patrol meetings focused on scoutcraft and Scout spirit and guiding us to move through the various stages of advancement in rank . " The Hungarian Scout program had four stages . During the first three years , Bánáthy advanced three stages . The last stage required Bánáthy to earn 25 merit badges . This last stage was called Turul , after the mythical bird of Hungary . From spring to fall , as weather permitted , the patrol had many outings . Every summer the troop went on a two - to three - week long summer camp . Members of Bánáthy ' s troop attended the 4th World Scout Jamboree in 1933 , where he would make a life - changing decision . Up to this time , Bánáthy had decided to follow his father into the ministry . Bánáthy wrote , While at the Jamboree , he briefly met Joseph Szentkiralyi , another Scout from Hungary . Hungarian Sea Scout Paul Ferenc Sujan and American Maurice Tripp also attended , and all three men would more than 20 years later play a key role in helping Bánáthy build a leadership program for youth in the United States . Also in 1933 , Bánáthy attended the regional patrol leader training week . Later in 1934 , Bánáthy and six other members of his troop traveled to the National Jamboree in Poland . They camped in a large pine forest and visited Krakow and Warsaw . The Polish government hosted a banquet for all of the Scouts in the Presidential Palace . In 1934 , he was awarded the best notebook prize of the national spring leadership camp and in 1935 , he was invited to serve on the junior staff of the same camp at Harshegy , Budapest . In 1935 , the troop traveled to the Bükk Mountains in northeastern Hungary for their summer camp . As a Senior Patrol leader , Bánáthy and two others took a bicycle tour in advance of the summer camp to preview the camping site . Military service during World War II . The two military men that Bánáthy had met , and from whom he developed a desire to serve in the military , soon played roles on the national stage that would affect Bánáthy . In 1937 , Bánáthy entered the Ludovika Akadémia , as was the custom for young men aspiring to military careers . In 1940 , at age 21 , Bánáthy was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the armored infantry . Later that year and met his future wife Eva Balazs during this time . Pál Teleki , whom Bánáthy had met at the 4th World Scout Jamboree in 1933 , was Chief Scout of Hungary and Prime Minister of Hungary . He and Regent Miklós Horthy tried to keep Hungary out of the war , though their national pride prompted them to seek a reversal of what they felt was the unjust geographic division of Hungary by the 1920 Treaty of Trianon . Germany promised this to them . Through the Munich Agreement of 1938 the country was reunited with a portion of Czechoslovakia that had been part of Hungary , and via the Vienna Award s they regained additional territory that had formerly been Hungarian lands . When Yugoslavia ' s government fell in a bloodless " coup d ' état " , Germany ' s southern flank was exposed , and its planned invasion of Russia was threatened . Germany responded with a plan to invade and compel Belgrade ' s support for the Axis and suggested that Hungary should also attack . Teleki refused , and the Germans asked permission to transport their troops across Hungary . The British , with whom Teleki had had a long relationship , sent word via the Hungarian Minister in London that they would declare war if he assented . Teleki heard soon afterward that Regent Horthy and General Henrik Werth , Chief of Staff of the Hungarian Army , had permitted the Germans to cross Hungary ' s borders . On 3 April 1941 , Teleki committed suicide . General Farkas was soon named by Regent Horthy as the country ' s new Chief Scout . Bánáthy served two tours on the Russian front in World War II as an armored infantry officer . In 1941 , Bánáthy ' s unit advanced during a severe November ice storm within of Moscow . Wounded , he returned from the front to Budapest and married his fiancé , Eva Balazs , with his arm in a sling . In 1942 , he returned to the Russian front with the Hungarian Second Army ( Second Magyar Honved ) at the Don River bend , supporting the German attack on Stalingrad . Having grown the peace - time Hungarian Army very quickly from an initial force of 80 , 000 , the rank - and - file of the Hungarian Army had undergone only eight weeks of training . They were charged with protecting the 8th Italian Army ' s ' s northern flank between the Novaya Pokrovka on the Don River to Rossosh , part of the larger force defending the drive by the German 6th Army against Soviet General Vasily Chuikov ' s 62nd Army , which was defending Stalingrad . On 13 January 1943 , the Russian troops , an overwhelming force in numbers and equipment , began the Voronezh - Kharkov Strategic Offensive Operation on the Bryansk , Voronezh , and Southwestern Front s . They rapidly destroyed the Hungarian Second Army in which Bánáthy served near Svoboda on the Don River . During Second Hungarian Army ' s 12 months of activity on the Russian front , from an initial force of about 200 , 000 Hungarian soldiers and 50 , 000 Jewish forced laborers , about 100 , 000 had been killed , 35 , 000 wounded , and 60 , 000 taken prisoners of war . Only about 40 , 000 returned to Hungary , scapegoated by Hitler for the catastrophic Axis defeat . " No nation lost as much blood during World War II in such a short period of time . " Bánáthy was seriously wounded and returned to Budapest , where he spent seven months recuperating from his wounds . After recuperating , he became a junior officer of the Royal Hungarian Army and served on the faculty of the Ludovika Akademia under Commandant General Farkas . Farkas sought a volunteer to teach junior leader training at the academy . Bánáthy , who had met Farkas at the 1933 Jamboree , volunteered . Farkas also asked Bánáthy to organize a Scout Troop for the young men , 19 years and older , which was a common practice within the Hungarian Scout Association at the time . Bánáthy found a passion in training the young men in officer ' s leadership skills and became the voluntary national director for youth leadership development and a member of the National Council of the Hungarian Scout Association . In July 1944 Bánáthy ' s mentor Colonel - General ( Hungarian : " Vezérezredes " ) Kisbarnaki Ferenc Farkas was Commander of the Hungarian VI Army Corps which had been garrison ed at Debrecen . He replaced General Beregfy , loyal to the Arrow Cross Party . During that month , Farkas ' VI Army Corp was instrumental in beating back a Red Army attack across the Carpathian mountains . On 15 October 1944 , Farkas was named commander of the Pest bridgehead and then Government Commissioner for Evacuation . In early November 1944 , the first Russian units appeared on the southeastern edge of Budapest . As an associate of Farkas , Bánáthy likely had advance notice of the Russian advance . He also knew he would probably be executed if captured . Bánáthy was able to get his wife Eva , one year old son Béla and two - week old son László out of Budapest . Bánáthy ' s family , along with other officers and their families , found shelter at first in farmhouses , and later in bunkers , caves , and trenches . When the Hungarian Second Army was disbanded due to a lack of equipment and personnel on 1 December 1944 , the remaining units of the Second Army , including Bánáthy ' s , were transferred to the Hungarian Third Army . The Siege of Budapest began when the city was first encircled on 29 December 1944 by the Red Army . Bánáthy fought with the remainder of his unit against the Russians until after Budapest fell on 13 February 1945 . The Axis was striving to protect the last oil fields they controlled in western Hungary around Lake Balaton . However , by late March 1945 , most of what was left of the Hungarian Third Army was surrounded and destroyed about to the west of Budapest in an advance by the Soviet 46th Army towards Vienna . The remaining shattered units fought on as they retreated progressively westward through the Transdanubian Mountains towards Austria . Bánáthy ' s family with the other family members of the remainder of his and other military units made their way west , along with tens of thousands of other refugees , about into Austria , trying to stay ahead of Russian advances . Temperatures through the time of their flight remained near . Life in displaced persons camp . Bánáthy reunited with his family in Austria , and as the war ended and Austria was occupied in April 1945 by the French , British , Soviet and US military forces , the family was placed in an Allied displaced persons camp . They were housed in a single room in a wooden barrack which served as their bedroom , kitchen , living room and firewood storage area . Food was extremely scarce and they subsisted on around 600 calories per person per day for five years . They were among 1 . 4 million displaced persons in Austria at the time while there was a worldwide food shortage . Food was also severely restricted by punitive U . S . policies including directive JCS 1067 , which in 1947 resulted in German citizens surviving on 1040 calories a day . Bánáthy later traded for milk to give two - year - old Béla and one - year - old László enough protein . With extremely little food available in the camps , in early 1947 his wife ' s twin sister came from Hungary and took the two older sons back to live with her older sister . The Pallendal family , Bánáthy ' s in - laws , was well - educated and relatively wealthy , so they had access to more food than what was available in the camps , and they intended to return the boys after a year . Beginning in early 1948 , when the Cold War ensued , it became virtually impossible for refugees or displaced persons to cross from the border of one country into another , or even from one Occupation Zone to another . The Pallendal family could not return the two boys from behind the Iron Curtain . In 1948 , shortly after their third son Tibor was born , the family was moved to another camp , near a Marshall Plan warehouse , where Bánáthy began unloading sacks of wheat from railroad cars . He contacted the World Scouting Movement for assistance and was successful in organizing Scouting in the camps . During 1947 , Bánáthy was named the Hungarian Scout Commissioner for Austria and led training for Hungarian Scout leaders along with his former commanding officer , Kisbarnaki Ferenc Farkas . He was ordained by the World Council of Churches and became minister for youth among Hungarian refugees . He served as director of religious education of the Protestant Refugee Service of Austria , was editor of a religious youth service and of a Scout publication . In 1948 Bánáthy ' s fourth son Robert was born . Bánáthy soon found work as a technical draftsman in the statistical office of a U . S . Army warehouse . In 1949 , with help from a Swiss foundation , Bánáthy assisted in establishing and was selected as the President of the Collegium Hungaricum , a boarding school for refugees , at Zell am See near Saalfelden , Austria . In the same year , the Communist government in Hungary seized the businesses belonging to the Pallendal family . Because they were members of the social elite , they were seen by the Communist government as a political threat as was common in that time . In 1951 , in what was a common practice during this time , the Hungarian Police arrived at dawn to seize the Pallendal family home with orders to deport the family from Budapest . Those at home were arrested and immediately deported . Seven - year - old Béla and six - year - old László , along with their grandmother and two aunts , were put aboard a freight train and sent towards Russia . As was the practice , the train stopped occasionally and a few hundred people were forced off . The Pallendal family was ejected in eastern Hungary , and an uncle was able to locate them and hide them from authorities in a small village in eastern Hungary . Emigrates to the United States . In January , 1951 , the student body of the Presbyterian McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago sponsored Béla , Eva , Tibor and Robert as refugees to the United States . Bánáthy ' s family lived in the Seminary , and Bánáthy labored nights 60 hours a week in the cellar of the Seminary , shoveling coal to fire the furnace , while studying English from a book . He occasionally preached at nearby Hungarian churches . His wife found work in a paper factory and Tibor , their third son , entered American public school . Begins teaching Hungarian language . When World War II ended , Bánáthy ' s former commanding officer and fellow Scouter General Farkas had become the U . S . Army ' s liaison to former Hungarian prisoners of war . In 1951 he recommended Bánáthy as a Hungarian language instructor , and Bánáthy was invited to teach at the U . S . government ' s Army Language School in Monterey , California . Bánáthy accepted the job and moved to Monterey in June 1951 . This became a pivotal event in Bánáthy ' s life . At the Army Language School , he met the founder of the Hungarian Department , Joseph Szentkiralyi ( Americanized as St . Clair ) , and soon found that this was the same man he had met at age 14 in 1933 at the 4th World Scout Jamboree . When Bánáthy ' s and St . Clair ' s wives met , they discovered they had been girlhood friends in grammar school in Budapest . Eva Bánáthy had managed a family restaurant in Budapest before World War II , and she found work as a waitress in a restaurant on the Monterey Peninsula . Bánáthy resumed his interest in Scouting and community service . He served as President of his local Parent - Teacher Association and on the board of the local Red Cross . In the same year , Paul Ferenc Sujan joined the language school faculty , and Bánáthy learned that Sujan had attended the 1933 World Jamboree as a Sea Scout . On February 28 , 1956 , Bánáthy become a United States citizen . After nine years of separation , and repeated failures to get his sons repatriated from behind the Iron Curtain , Bánáthy obtained help from Dr . Eugene Blake , President of the National Council of Churches ; Representative Charles M . Teague ; Ernest Nagy , Vice Consul in the U . S . Legation in Budapest ; Hulda Neiburh of the McCormick Theological Seminary ; and Howard Pyle , deputy assistant to President Eisenhower . He was finally able to bring 13 year old Béla and 11 year old László , who had not seen their parents for nine years , to the United States from behind the Iron Curtain . The two boys greeting their mother was featured in a picture in Life Magazine . Professional life . Along with a lifelong interest in Scouting , Bánáthy was an educator , a systems and design scientist , and an author . At the Army Language School , he taught in the Hungarian language department , later becoming its chairman . White Stag Leadership Development Program . Following on his interest in leadership development for youth that he had nurtured in Hungary , in 1957 Bánáthy began experimenting with a concept for a leadership development program . As Council Training Chairman in the Monterey Bay Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America , he proposed to and received broad support from the Council Executive and Council Executive Board the idea of training boys in leadership skills . He was assisted by fellow Hungarians Joe Szentkiralyi ( Chair of the Hungarian Language Department at the Army Language school , he later Anglicized his name as St . Clair ) and Paul Sujan ( Hungarian Language Instructor at the Army Language school ) ; Fran Peterson ( a member of the National Council and a Scoutmaster from Chular , California ) ; and Maury Tripp ( a Scouter from Saratoga , California , a member of the National Council and a research scientist ) . Bánáthy , St . Clair , Sujan and Tripp had all attended the 4th World Scout Jamboree in Hungary , where Bánáthy and St . Clair had briefly met . " Lord Baden - Powell was my personal idol and I long felt a commitment to give back to Scouting what I had received " , Bánáthy said . As part of his Master ' s Degree program in counseling psychology at San José State University , he wrote a thesis titled " A Design for Leadership Development in Scouting " . This book described the founding principles of the White Stag program , which was later adapted by the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America . Prior to Bánáthy ' s work , the adult Wood Badge and the junior leader training programs had focused on teaching Scoutcraft skills and some aspects of the Patrol Method . His research and findings on teaching principles and competencies of leadership had a huge impact on these two programs , shifting their focus to leadership skills . The leadership competencies he articulated became the " de facto " method for Scout adult and junior leader training . ( In 2008 , the White Stag program celebrated its 50th anniversary . ) In 1960 , the Monterey Bay Area Council recognized Béla for his exceptional service to youth and awarded him the Silver Beaver . In the 1970s , due to the success of the White Stag program , Bánáthy was appointed to the Interamerican Scout Committee and participated in three interamerican " Train the Trainer " events in Mexico , Costa Rica , and Venezuela . He guided their national training teams in designing leadership development by design programs . Béla also taught in Sunday School and was on the Board of the United Methodist Church of the Wayfarer in Carmel , California . Systems science . In the 1960s Bánáthy began teaching courses in applied linguistics and systems science at San José State University . In 1962 he was named Dean and Chairman of the East Europe and Middle East Division at the Army Language School , overseeing ten language departments . In 1963 he completed his master degree in psychology at San Jose State University , and in 1966 he received a doctorate in education for a transdisciplinary program in education , systems theory , and linguistics from the University of California in Berkeley . During the mid - 1960s Bánáthy was named Chair of Western Division of the Society for General Systems Research . He published his first book , " Instructional Systems , " in 1968 . Large complex systems . During the 1960s and 1970s , Bánáthy was a visiting professor at the University of California , Berkeley and continued teaching at San Jose State University . In 1969 , he left the renamed Defense Language Institute and became a Program Director , and later Senior Research Director and Associate Laboratory Director , at the Far West Laboratory for Research and Development ( now WestEd ) in Berkeley ( later moved to San Francisco ) . He " directed over fifty research and development programs , designed many curriculum projects and several large scale complex system s , including the design and implementation of a Ph . D . program in educational research and development for UC Berkeley " . In the 1970s and 1980s , he focused his research on the application of systems and design theories and methodologies in social , social service , educational , and human development systems . In the 1980s he developed and guided a Ph . D . curriculum in humanistic systems inquiry and social systems design for the Saybrook Graduate School . International Systems Institute . In 1981 , he founded the International Systems Institute ( ISI ) , a non - profit , public benefit scientific and educational corporation in Carmel , California , USA . He organized its first meeting at Fuschl am See , Austria in 1982 . What was truly revolutionary about the International Systems Institute was Banathy ' s method for organizing conferences . Banathy observed that in traditional conferences , a few usually well - respected or prestigious individuals would apply to present " pre - packaged new ideas " to others . In typical conferences , presenting almost always carries more prestige than listening ; the few presenters share their wisdom with the many . This one - to - many or " hierarchical knowledge distribution system " slowed the sharing and spreading of ideas about which many people cared deeply if not passionately , as there was always limited opportunity for interchange among participants . This interaction was usually wedged into the interstices of the formal schedule in the form of informal , spontaneous gatherings for which no record existed . The notion that presenting is more important than listening aroused lifelong antipathy in Bánáthy . When he formulated the leadership competencies of the White Stag Leadership Development Program in the 1960s , he described the passing of knowledge from one to another as " Manager of Learning " . He wrote extensively about how the focus should be on the learner , not the teacher . Bánáthy advanced a different vision for conferences , one that would allow everyone to fully engage . He proposed that everyone be given the opportunity to prepare and distribute papers to all participants in advance of the conference . And instead of listening to speeches , conference attendees took part in extended , non - hierarchical conversations about the conference papers . The conference proceedings were the result of these conversations . Bánáthy felt strongly that systems scholars from all over the world should be given ongoing opportunities to engage in extended conversations so they might put their expertise " actively into the service of humanity worldwide " . Bánáthy wrote : " We aspire to reap the ' reflecting and creating power ' of groups that emerge in the course of disciplined and focused conversations on issues that are important to us and to our society " . Participants at International Systems Institute gatherings have , since the original meeting organized by Bánáthy in 1982 , organized them around this principle and referred to them as " conversations " . General Evolutionary Research Group . In 1984 , he was co - founder with general evolution theorist Ervin László and others of the initially secret General Evolutionary Research Group . A member of the Society of General Systems Research since the 1960s , he was Managing Director of the Society in the early 1980s , and in 1985 he became its president . He then served on its Board of Trustees . During the 1980s , he served on the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Systems Research . In 1989 , he retired from Far West Labs and returned to live on the Monterey Peninsula . He continued to serve as Professor Emeritus for the Saybrook Graduate School , counseling Ph . D . students . He also continued his work with the annual ISI international systems design conversations , and authored a number of articles and books about systems , design , and evolutionary research . He served two terms as president of the International Federation of Systems Research during 1994 - 98 . He coordinated over twenty international systems research conferences held in eight countries , including the 1994 Conversation on Systems Design conversation held at Fuschl Am See , Austria , sponsored by the International Federation of Systems Research . He was also honorary editor of three international systems journals : Systems Research and Behavioral Science , the Journal of Applied Systems Studies , and Systems . He was on the Board of Editors of World Futures , and served as a contributing editor of Educational Technology . Final years . In 1992 , Bánáthy , a long - standing member of the Hungarian Scout Association Abroad ( Külföldi Magyar Cserkészszövetség ) , traveled from his Monterey , California home in the United States to Hungary following its renewed freedom . There , he helped restart the Hungarian Scout Association within its native country . Bánáthy spent considerable time during the last few years of his life caring for his wife Eva in their home in Carmel , California . She had been in poor health for a number of years after a stroke . In the summer of 2003 Bánáthy and his wife moved to live with their son Tibor in Chico , California . After a brief and unexpected illness , Bánáthy died on September 4 , 2003 . He and Eva had been married 64 years at the time of his death . Publications . Bánáthy authored several books and hundreds of articles . A selection :