Operations Research 50th Anniversary

<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" link="cc0000" vlink="cc0000" text="#000000"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br>   <table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=480><tr valign=top> <td width=10><img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 hspace=4 border=0></td> <td width=470> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B><I><A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top">OR/MS Today</A> - October 2002</I></B></font><BR> <hr size="1"> <img src="cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <font face="times new roman, times"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>Operations Research 50th Anniversary</B></FONT><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <IMG SRC="art/50th-logo-Tall.jpg" WIDTH="90" HEIGHT="216" HSPACE="8" VSPACE="0" ALIGN="left" BORDER="1" ALT=" "> <FONT SIZE="+1"><I>Side Story: </I></FONT><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> <FONT SIZE="+2"><B>Reminiscences & Reflections:<BR> My first taste of OR</B><BR> 'Frank Parker Fowler Jr. Made Me Do It'</FONT><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>By Gene Woolsey</B></FONT><br> <hr size="1"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br>    <IMG SRC="art/Woolsey_PxA.jpg" WIDTH="120" HEIGHT="171" HSPACE="8" VSPACE="0" ALIGN="Right" BORDER="1" ALT=" "> In the late 1960s, I was a systems analyst in the mathematics division of Sandia Corporation in Albuquerque, N.M. (Company motto: "Better Bombs For Better Living  Through Chemistry"). For those of you who don't know what Sandia Corporation was at that time, I will explain. We were, as I recall, a research laboratory reporting to the Atomic Energy Commission with management contracted out to what was then Bell Telephone. The standing joke there, among Sandia employees, was that Sandia was a clever way for the phone company to train its up-and-coming management on government money. If a young up-and-comer was identified in the Bell System, he or she was sent to Sandia to learn how to manage. The other standing joke was that if the up-and-comer succeeded, he or she went back into higher management of the Bell System; however, if the up-and-comer did not do well, they remained at Sandia as part of our nation's weapons program research.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Sandia, like many such corporations, had a tuition program to encourage Sandia employees to continue their technological education. I decided that I would pursue a doctorate in business at the University of New Mexico. At that time, UNM didn't offer one, but the dean of the business school said it was coming soon, so I might as well start taking courses.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I found a course called "Operations Research" that was taught by the director of the computer center, a fellow named Frank Parker Fowler Jr. It seems he was also finishing his dissertation in OR at U.C. Berkeley. His advisor was someone named Churchman, who, I noticed, was one of the authors of the text we were using in the OR class. The book was, of course, Churchman, Arnoff and Ackoff's "Introduction to Operations Research" (otherwise known as the "Big Red Book").<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Fowler turned out to be a spellbinding speaker with an off-the-wall sense of humor. He started us off with the founding of operations research (double-entry bookkeeping) by the Roman Curia and its first real military analysis by the German General Staff, winding up with WWII applications to fighter and bomber command, sitting radar and allocating Hurricanes and Spitfires optimally in the battle of Britain.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> After this whiz-bang introduction, for the rest of the semester he showed us real-world applications of assignment and transportation problems, linear programming, inventory models, Markov chains and simulation. I was hooked.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> At the same time, my boss at Sandia, Donald Morrison, noting my interest in optimization, asked me to look into the anti-missile-missile problem. As it had been defined as an integer programming problem, my job was to learn everything I could about algorithms for integer programming problems. In short, I obtained or coded every viable integer programming method currently available and then ran the collected algorithms against every viable integer programming problem I could find.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I soon became known as "the voice of the desert." If you were having trouble solving an I.P. problem, the word was out that all you had to do was to dial a given number at Sandia and tell the person who answered about your problem. Usually the person who answered the phone could recommend a reformulation or a different algorithm or different settings on a different algorithm to make it work. Best of all, it was free.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> As the Ph.D. in business never materialized at UNM, I changed to economics, found Steiner's I.P. model of the Snake River Basin, all the combinations of which had, to that point, not been solved, and put it together as a dissertation proposal for the Delaware River Basin. It was accepted by Fred Glover at the University of Texas Business School and William G. Lesso of the Mechanical Engineering Department of the same school. Just over a year-and-a-half later, I finished up, looked around for a school as right wing as I was, and I have been at the Colorado School of Mines ever since.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> So deepest gratitude is due to F. Parker Fowler. He did it, and I am damned grateful that he did. Abject thanks Parker!<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><I><B>Gene Woolsey</B> is the senior professor in the Operations Research Specialization at the Colorado School of Mines.</i><BR> <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=2 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2> Return to the main story: <I><A HREF="frhistory.html" TARGET="_top">History in the Making</A></I></FONT><br>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=5 border=0><br>  <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="1"> <CENTER><script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></CENTER><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="tocfr.html" Target="_top"><I>Table of Contents</I></A><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top"><I>OR/MS Today</I> Home Page</A><br>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <b><i>OR/MS Today</i></b> copyright © 2002 by <A HREF="http://www.informs.org/" target="_new">the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences</a>. 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