In Memoriam: Graham T. T. Molitor (1934–2017)

Prompted by the June 22, 2017 passing of an American titan of futures research, World Futures Review (WFR) offers six tributes to the life and thought of Graham T. T. Molitor. Few can doubt the scope of Molitor’s professional achievement in serving the futures field for over five decades. The breadth of Molitor’s work, however, may render it to charges of reductionism. Despite this, all agree that Molitor was the first futurist to professionally use policy analysis to frame mid-range futures.

Graham Molitor was a futurist, author, lawyer, lobbyist and consultant, and pioneer of emerging issues analysis—a leader in public policy forecasting. He served under four different U.S. Presidents, established his own consulting agency, and from the start as their vice president and legal counsel, developed the World Future Society.

Molitor authored or coauthored three books and four hundred articles, chapters, and reports for two hundred organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, professional associations, domestic and foreign governments, research organizations ranging from Harvard and MIT to Arthur D. Little, and the Hudson Institute. He also served on the editorial board of various journals, including Futures Research Quarterly, Techno-logy Forecasting and Social Change, and the Journal of Futures Studies.

Molitor was the coeditor of The 21st Century (Macmillan, 1999) and The Encyclopedia of the Future (Macmillan, 1996). For futurists, however, Molitor’s most seminal work was his “Molitor Model of Change” which he refined over the course of five decades. Starting with a pivotal 1977 article on “How to Anticipate Public-Policy Changes,” Molitor authored The Power to Change the World: The Art of Fore-casting at the culmination of his career. This benchmark manual was a three-part volume that described over one hundred empirical techniques to spot, monitor, and anticipate public policy change; assess societal change; and pinpoint market opportunities across fifty generic categories.

This section starts with “The Molitor Model,” a 2009 executive summary that Molitor adapted from his book. Following this WFR offers six reflections by peers and practitioners on Graham Molitor—both the man and his methodology.

Cindy Wagner, the editor of The Futurist (1981–2014), offers a recap of Molitor’s career and writing.

Tim Mack, president of the World Future Society (2004–2014), shares a personal reflection as a professional colleague.

Sohail Inayatullah provides a reflective piece on how he used Molitor’s model to map judicial horizons, only to later meet and collaborate with him at various conferences.

Seongwon Park reports how he recently used Molitor’s emerging issue analysis in his X-Project work to gain consensus for Korean policy for science and technology.

Maureen Rheeman documents how Molitor approached long-range horizons by detecting inflective patterns of change and potential disruptors.

Jay Gary offers a window into how Molitor reached audiences at the World Future Society, how he produced forecasts across various sectors, and how Molitor’s work might be situated in futures studies.