Thanks for the Memories

This issue completes my 30th year as editor of OR/MS Today. For those of you keeping score at home, that spans 180 issues, 34 organization presidents (ORSA and TIMS each had a president before they merged in 1995 to create INFORMS) and seven executive directors. I’ve enjoyed working with all of them, interviewed most of them and count many of them as friends. The same could be said of the countless other members of INFORMS who contributed to OR/MS Today and helped me in so many ways, whether it was writing an article for the magazine or offering me some much-needed advice.

It’s been a good, long ride since John Llewellyn, then head of Lionheart Publishing that produced OR/MS Today for much of the past 30 years, tossed me the editor keys and told me to drive OR/MS Today even though I had never heard of operations research or management science before taking the wheel. It didn’t take me long, however, to realize what an amazing field I had stumbled upon, and the even more amazing group of people I would be covering in my journalistic role.

Now it’s time for me to step down and turn the keys over to assistant editor Kara Tucker. I’ve had the good fortune of working (virtually) alongside Kara for the past three years, at first in a mentoring role and more recently in tandem, all by design in anticipation of Kara becoming the editor. In fact, Kara served as the de facto editor of this issue in which we co-authored a couple of features – one on the Edelman Award, the other a Q&A with INFORMS President-Elect Steve Graves. Kara is more than ready to take the next step and brings with her a fresh set of eyes, ears and ideas.

While I will be stepping down, I won’t be stepping out. I will continue as editor of Analytics magazine, an online publication aimed at analytics practitioners, managers and C-level execs, and I’ll support Kara on OR/MS Today much as she has supported me, so keep those editorial ideas and article proposals coming.

The Long Goodbye

This final Inside Story is personal, a thank-you card to those INFORMS members who have contributed so much to the magazine and me over the past 30 years. As this planned transition – three years in the making – draws near, I can’t help but think about all of the wonderful, helpful people I’ve met along the way. It started on my first day at Lionheart when I received a call (yes, kids, people used phones to actually talk to each other back then) from the legendary Gene Woolsey. I’m pretty sure John Llewellyn asked Gene to give me a pep talk. In any case, Gene began by telling me he “doesn’t suffer fools gladly,” which sounded ominous, but I soon came to understand that that was Gene’s standard opening line for everyone he met. Gene’s advice was succinct: “You’ll make mistakes. Learn from them. And don’t take any crap from anyone.”

Well, Gene got two out of three right, which as rocker Meatloaf once sang, “ain’t bad.” I did make mistakes, lots of them; and I learned from them, sometimes the hard way. As for the third part, well, let’s just say you don’t survive 30 years putting out a magazine every other month in front of some of the smartest, opinionated people on the planet without ruffling a few feathers and then getting your hair mussed (when last I had some hair to muss) as a result.

Robert Machol, then the chief scientist at the Federal Aviation Administration, excelled at mussing my thinning hair. He would seemingly read every word of every issue of OR/MS Today and give me a call in his raspy New York accent to critique it. His usual comment: “Why in the world did you publish that article by (fill in the name)? He doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about. You should have had (fill in the blank) write it.” I immediately liked him.

No one in my place could have had a better source than Saul Gass, a walking, talking (in a Boston accent) encyclopedia of operations research and management science. Saul seemed to know everyone in INFORMS, and he constantly fed me names and leads and story ideas, including an introduction to the great George B. Dantzig, which led to a one-on-one interview with GBD. Gene, Bob, Saul, GBD and many other pillars of the profession have passed away, a melancholy reminder of just how long I’ve been doing this.

Naming Names, Risky Business

Of course, naming names in a situation like this is risky business because you either overlook someone or reach your word limit. I’ll take my chances and trust that those not mentioned will understand why I name dropped the following:

Dick Larson, Arnie Barnett and Ed Kaplan. Maybe it’s their MIT connection (Ed as a grad student, he’s now at Yale), but I like to think of them as the Three Musketeers of operations research who epitomize the “O.R. mindset” when approaching and framing complex, important problems, particularly in the public sector. They quickly recognize and define a problem and ride in to help solve it, from aviation safety to mitigating HIV and COVID-19 spread. For three decades, all three have shared their incredible work with OR/MS Today readers, and all three generously shared their wisdom with me, including separate stints as chairman of the OR/MS Today Committee (now the Magazine Editorial Advisory Board or MEAB. Their contributions continue to this day.

Sheldon Jacobson, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a fourth musketeer of O.R. and analytics and a frequent contributor to OR/MS Today on his work applying O.R. and advanced analytics to address societal problems of national interest. For more on Sheldon, the three awards he was presented at the 2020 Virtual INFORMS Annual Meeting and other award-winners, click here.

Andres Weintraub, Jim Cochran and Peter Bell. I link them together because they are longtime, well-traveled INFORMS members who have been instrumental in OR/MS Today’s annual special issues on “International O.R.” and/or “Innovative Education,” both of which have no boundaries. Nearly 25 years ago, Andres first suggested a special international issue, and he’s been introducing me to potential content contributors ever since – usually at what we call our “traditional” breakfast/planning session at the INFORMS Annual Meeting.

Jim, who chairs the MEAB, is not only a trusted friend and advisor, he’s also contributed many articles to both special issues, and he urges others in his worldwide network of colleagues to do the same.

Like breakfast with Andres for the international issue, another annual tradition was inviting Peter to contribute to the innovative education issue because he’s such a well-respected, innovative teacher … and every year he would produce a timely, often provocative piece on the state of analytics education from his unique perspective. Peter recently retired so I gave him this year off from the education issue, but I asked him to contribute a Last Word column for this issue on another of his favorite topics, the Edelman Award, and he came through once again.

Karla Hoffman and Anne Robinson. Thirty years ago, the only woman who had ever served as president of INFORMS and its predecessors ORSA and TIMS up to that point was Judith Liebman in 1986 (ORSA). Karla became the first female president of INFORMS in 1998, and Anne became the youngest INFORMS president in history in 2013. Interestingly, half (eight of 16) of the last presidents-elect of INFORMS have been women. Among her many accomplishments, Karla played a key role on the Federal Communications Commission team that won the 2018 Edelman Award, while Anne was a leader in the analytics movement within INFORMS and championed the founding of Analytics magazine. Both have been long-time supporters of OR/MS Today.

Eva Lee, Anna Nagurney, Grace Lin and Robin Lougee. Throughout their remarkable careers, each have made tremendous contributions to, and support of, INFORMS and OR/MS Today. Their insight, expertise and energy has inspired me as they took on a wide range of public policy problems, including most recently COVID-19 response modeling and mitigation (Eva), blood supply chain issues during the pandemic (Anna), digital transformation of aging care (Grace) and food supply chain and food scarcity (Robin), the latter of which is this month’s cover story.

James Swain has been the author of the biennial software surveys of both statistical analysis and simulation in OR/MS Today for more than 25 years (look for both in 2021). He gets extra credit for helping me receive my first email almost 30 years ago via a server at Georgia Tech, where he was teaching. At the time, only the military and research universities were familiar with email. For the record, the email was sent by Dick Larson. It took about 50 keystrokes to retrieve it. Funny what things you remember.

Doug Samuelson and Vijay Mehrotra. Two longtime OR/MS Today columnists who authored very different columns on the foibles of the O.R. profession. Doug’s ORacle column, a parable, used a conversational format among O.R. professionals that often ended with a layperson solving the conflict. Vijay’s “Was It Something I Said” column, largely based on his own experiences, explored the ups and downs of life as an O.R. entrepreneur/consultant in the Dot-com era.

Vijay eventually took his talents to Analytics magazine, where he continues to probe adventures in the real world and academia alike in “Analyze This!” Doug holds the record for the most combined articles in OR/MS Today history.

I could go on and on and thank many more because there’s no way I could have made it this far without them either, but for now, Happy New Year to all and thanks for the memories.