In Memoriam: Donald Paul Gaver Jr. (1926-2018)

Donald Paul Gaver Jr., an INFORMS Fellow and a longtime professor of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School, passed away at his home in Monterey, Calif., on Feb. 11, five days short of what would have been his 92nd birthday. An active member of INFORMS and its predecessor, the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA), Professor Gaver advanced both organizations and the O.R. discipline in multiple capacities since the 1950s.

Born and raised in St. Paul, Minn., Professor Gaver served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Afterwards, he received degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University. While working on his Ph.D. at Princeton, he was part of the Navy’s Operations Evaluation Group before accepting a position at Westinghouse Research Laboratories. In addition to his time at Westinghouse, Professor Gaver taught courses at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1964, Professor Gaver moved to academia full time at Carnegie Mellon, and in 1971 he became a professor of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School, a position he held for the rest of his distinguished career.

Internationally, Professor Gaver was recognized for his research in applied probability modeling and the field of queueing theory. Though his work had been largely focused on operations research in the military, he touched upon numerous application areas including problems in transportation and traffic congestion. Besides INFORMS, Professor Gaver was an elected member and fellow of numerous societies including the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the National Academy of Engineering and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Starting in 1954, he published nearly 120 professional papers on a diverse range of applied and theoretical problems.

Professor Gaver consulted with numerous organizations including the RAND Corporation (1987-1994), AT&T Bell Laboratories (1986-1994) and EPRI (1972-1989). His research received funding from such entities as the National Security Agency, the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation. Professor Gaver also served on professional committees related to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Research Council. In 2009, the Secretary of the Navy awarded him the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Medal for his national security contributions and the positive influence he had on generations of naval officers.

Professor Gaver held multiple positions with ORSA and then INFORMS. He was a member of ORSA’s Visiting Lecturer Programing in the 1970s. In 1989, he served as chairman of the joint ORSA/TIMS College of Applied Probability (today’s Applied Probability Society). As a member of the ORSA Publications Committee, he was active in the transportation science section of the discipline. In 2012, Professor Gaver was awarded the Military Applications Society of INFORMS’ Jacinto Steinhardt Prize and was recognized for his “substantive contribution to our nation’s military capability” and his continued work in the area.

Professor Gaver’s affiliation with the U.S. Navy dates back nearly 75 years. After graduating from the St. Paul Academy, he joined the Navy and served as an electronics mate from 1944 to 1946, a stint that brought him to the Monterey Peninsula in California for training at the Del Monte Hotel (currently the site of the Naval Postgraduate School).

Following World War II, Professor Gaver took advantage of the GI Bill to attend MIT, where he obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics. This led him to the U.S. Navy Operations Evaluation Group in Washington, D.C., and then to Princeton University for a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Professor Gaver’s early professional career spanned the U.S. Navy’s Operations Evaluation Group, Westinghouse Research Labs and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In 1967-1968, he took his family for a sabbatical year at the University of California, Berkeley, returning to Pittsburgh for two years before moving back to California to become professor of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School where he remained for nearly 45 years.

Professor Gaver was named Distinguished Professor of the Naval Postgraduate School in 1983. Over the next decades his contributions were recognized with a steady stream of professional honors, including the U.S. Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Medal awarded by the Secretary of the Navy. He was awarded many other honors by his colleagues, and he was perhaps most proud of his election as a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Donald (“Don” to those who knew him) Garver met Frances (“Fran”) Rouse Gaver while he was at MIT and she was a student at Wellesley College. They both graduated in 1950, and they married in 1953 before moving to Princeton together. That was the start of what was to be 65 years of devoted married life. The couple loved traveling, and they made many trips to Europe, Asia and Australia. At home, Don was known as a loyal, gregarious and often mischievous friend and host.

Sources: INFORMS, Naval Postgraduate School and the Monterey Herald.