Leader of Control Data's early strategic expansion into international operations and marketing, Price also drove the strategic move into information and systems integration services. He graduated from Duke University in 1952, and later obtained his Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Georgia Tech. He moved to California where he worked as a computer programmer at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the Convair division of General Dynamics Corporation. He began working for the Control Data Corporation in 1961 as a Mathematician Staff Specialist.
His responsibilities there included software sales and services, international sales, and several executive positions, culminating with serving as President and Chief Executive Officer from 1986 to 1989. He joined Control Data in 1961 as a Mathematician Staff Specialist, became Director, International Operations in 1963, Group Vice President, Services in 1972, and President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) in 1980. Price led Control Data's early strategic expansion into international operations and marketing as well as the strategic move into information and systems integration services. He succeeded the company's founder, William C. Norris, as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Control Data Corporation (now Ceridian Corporation), and retired in 1990 after 29 years with Control Data.
In 1985 he led a consortium of corporations and individuals in the founding of the National Center for Social Entrepreneurs (NCSE). The Center's mission was to encourage entrepreneurship throughout the non-profit sector, and to help individual non-profits create or expand social purpose business ventures. Price served as Chairman of NCSE and for many years on the Board of the United Way of the Greater Minneapolis Area.
After retiring from Control Data, he taught in Duke University's Fuqua School of Business for 15 years and served as an Adjunct Professor in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke. He was chairman and CEO of International Multifoods Corporation during 1996–97, now part of Smuckers. Price also served on the Advisory Board of New York University's Courant Institute, Duke's Fuqua School of Business, and Georgia Tech's College of Arts and Sciences.
As a member of the Education Committee of the Business Roundtable, he served as an advisor to New Mexico's State Department of Education and helped found the New Mexico Governor's Business Executives for Education. He was a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities, including Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He served as President and CEO of PSV, Inc., offering services in technology commercialization, corporate strategy, and human resource management.
Price published in the California Management Review and various business publications, a few of which include: "Commitment Without Involvement." Harvard Business Review 62 no. 5 (1984): 162–171; "Supercomputers Propel Technology." Vital Speeches of the Day 54 no. 14 (1988): 435–438 (delivered at the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute Luncheon in Washington, D.C. on February 25, 1988); "Computers in the '90s." Vital Speeches of the Day 56 no. 17 (1990): 530 (delivered at the Minnesota Executive Speaker Series, February 13, 1990); "Technology and Strategic Advantage," IEEE Engineering Management Review 26 no. 2 (1998): 26–36; and Building the Control Data Legacy: The Career of Robert M. Price. Edited by Thomas J. Misa. Minneapolis: Charles Babbage Institute, 2012 ISBN 1300058188.
