Born and raised in Northbridge, Massachusetts, Whitin graduated from Kent School in Kent, Connecticut in 1940 and received his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 1943. After the War he returned to Princeton, where he received his Department of Administration and Management and Doctor of Philosophy late 1940s.
After graduation Whitin started his academic career as Associate Professor at Princeton University in its Economics Department. In 1953 he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was appointed Professor of Economics in the School of Industrial Management. From 1956 to 1958 he was Chief Economist at the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington District of Columbia, and returned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for another two years.
In 1960 he was appointed Professor of Business Administration at the University of California at Berkeley.
In 1963 he moved back to Connecticut to the Wesleyan University, where he was appointed Chester Doctorate. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, where he stayed until his retirement June 30, 1993. In 1958 Whitin and Harvey M. Wagner wrote the article, what would become the seminal work on the dynamic lot-size model.
Whitin died aged 90 at Tiverton, Rhode Island in December, 2013.
