Fifty Roundtable members and guests met in San Francisco in conjunction with the INFORMS annual meeting to explore the theme "Pricing and Revenue Management." Andy Boyd (vice president, PROS) focused his comments on the airline industry; Garrett van Ryzin (professor, Graduate School of Business at Columbia University) provided a revenue management tutorial; Kelly Ireland (co-founder and vice president, Metreo) discussed pricing methods for manufacturers and distributors; Srinivas Bollapragada (senior operations researcher, General Electric) discussed revenue management in the broadcast industry; and Andy Slusher (vice president, Yellow-Roadway) presented successful pricing experiences in the less-than-truckload industry. As always, discussion was lively.

In addition to the themed program, there were two brief updates — Robin Lougee-Heimer of IBM on the new INFORMS Professional Colloquium and Ken Chelst of Wayne State University on plans for operations research education at the high school level. Finally, the Roundtable and the INFORMS Board met jointly to discuss the role of the Roundtable in INFORMS and to explore possible opportunities.

The Roundtable used its schedule in conjunction with the INFORMS meeting to undertake a number of initiatives relative to INFORMS at large. Nine member-companies of the Roundtable sponsored sessions during the annual meeting. These sessions featured practice-focused presentations from 22 companies and three academic institutions, 16 of which are members of the Roundtable. The Roundtable sponsored an INFORMS Academic-Practitioner Luncheon under the leadership of Roundtable representative Dwight Collins (Colbridge & Company). More than 100 meeting attendees joined the luncheon that included discussion at each luncheon table facilitated by Roundtable members.

Turning to the social side of things, the Roundtable enjoyed a reception with INFORMS President Richard Larson and hosted a luncheon for Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., which won the 2005 INFORMS Prize. There was also a kickoff outing for members and guests to Alcatraz (most were allowed to return).