December 1999 Editor's note: Gerald J. Lieberman, founder of the Operations Research Department at Stanford University and a 1996 recipient of the George E. Kimball Medal from INFORMS for distinguished service to the Institute and the profession, died on May 18 at the age of 73 (OR/MS Today, August 1999, p. 61). Lieberman and Frederick Hillier's textbook, "Introduction to Operations Research," literally introduced tens of thousands of young operations researchers to the field. Shortly after Lieberman died, OR/MS Today, asked Hillier to write a tribute to his long-time mentor and colleague, focusing on their productive relationship, the early days of Stanford's OR Department and the making of their famed textbook. The results follow. I had just arrived at Stanford as an incoming freshman. It was a time of emotional turmoil, full of both anticipation and anxiety about what the next four years would bring. My next assignment was to meet with my freshman advisor for the first time. I was not looking forward to this event because I rather anticipated that my advisor would be a dour older professor who would be too busy to pay much attention to me. As I entered his office, I quickly realized how wrong I was. Here was a vibrant and congenial young man who immediately made me feel very comfortable. He even confided to me (a sports nut) that the fall was a special time at Stanford because you got to go to Stanford football games. I left his office feeling much more optimistic about what lay ahead. Thus began my 45-year relationship with the remarkable Jerry Lieberman. It would prove to be a relationship that would literally change the course of my life. Having found my special advisor, I was not about to let him get away. I soon executed my original plan of declaring industrial engineering as my major and thereby locked in Jerry as my advisor for all four undergraduate years. Before long, I also got to take several of his courses. As expected, I found that he was a very popular and talented teacher who had great rapport with his students. He often was like a pied piper walking to and from class with a group of students. He enjoyed students and students enjoyed him. I found one of his courses especially thrilling. It was one he had recently initiated to provide an introduction to the newly emerging field of operations research. (The simplex method was about a decade old at that point.) For me, it was a case of love at first sight. What a perfect match for my interests and skills! I knew now what my career specialty was going to be. I am sure that Jerry turned many other students on to operations research as well. My long-range plan was to stay on for an M.S. degree in industrial engineering, taking as much operations research as possible, and then go to business school for an MBA degree. However, Jerry had a grander vision for my future. He urged me to get a Ph.D. degree and go into an academic career. This was a brand new idea to me, but I gradually was persuaded that it made sense for me. In retrospect, this was by far my best choice, but I often marvel at how close I came to missing it except for Jerry pointing the way. He undoubtedly had a similar impact on some other advisees and students as well. I suspect there were many. At about this same time, Jerry indirectly had another special impact on my life. I met my future wife Ann in his classes. A fellow member of the class of 1958, she was a statistics major. We were married a couple months after graduation. She went on for an M.S. degree in statistics with a research assistantship from Jerry, who served as her advisor. She then worked for a couple years for Stanford's Applied Mathematics and Statistics Laboratory, where Jerry was her favorite boss. (She soon heard from other staff members that he was everybody's favorite boss.) One of her jobs was preparing the solutions manual for what would become the best selling Bowker-Lieberman textbook, "Engineering Statistics." All this proved to be excellent preparation for later becoming an invaluable member of the team for the Hillier-Lieberman textbooks, doing my word processing, constructing my tables and figures, catching errors, overseeing solutions manuals, etc. Ann's memories of our early years with Jerry are just as fond as mine. He was unusually friendly and inclusive with everybody with whom he came into contact, including undergraduates. A typical incident occurred some months after Ann had taken her first course (a large one) from Jerry her sophomore year. She was walking on campus when Jerry spotted her, fell into step with her and started chatting, inquiring about her courses and how everything was going. His classes were informal and enjoyable despite being demanding. He always was considerate of his students. Later, when Jerry was her boss, Ann remembers how he would brighten everybody's day when he came into the room because of his jolly nature and good humor. Work and deadlines were important to him, but people were more important, and he always kept this in perspective. He became famous for his standard remark when he finished a working session with somebody: "OK, now take the rest of the day off." It made us feel better even when our working day wasn't over yet. Early in my senior year, Jerry pointed me toward some national fellowships (eventually won) that would support my graduate study at any school of my choice. He also explained that Stanford was gearing up to provide educational leadership in this exciting new field of operations research, so Stanford would become the place to be for graduate study in this field. I decided to sign on for what would turn out to be three more years of study at Stanford, with Jerry as my graduate advisor and then my dissertation advisor. During my total of seven years of study, Jerry put me into many wonderful courses with top-notch faculty. In addition to the regular undergraduate engineering courses and the full industrial engineering curriculum, I got to take 17 statistics courses, 13 math courses, five economics courses, a technical writing course, etc., as well as every operations research course given in any department. I have always felt blessed to have the extensive background that Jerry's careful advising gave me. During my graduate study, Jerry also arranged for me to teach a couple courses. One of these was the Introduction to Operations Research course that had so excited me when I took it from Jerry a few years before. To help prepare, I audited Harvey Wagner's version of the course. I then threw myself into the course preparation with meticulous care and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. These class notes later were to provide the foundation for my part of the first edition of our textbook. During my final year of graduate study, Jerry opened several doors for me that led to attractive offers of faculty appointments at other universities as well as at Stanford. As fond as I was of Stanford, I was feeling that I should expand my horizons by accepting an offer back East. However, destiny and Jerry were to combine once again to move me in a better direction. After visiting a couple of Eastern schools in January 1961, I came into New York to catch a flight home just as a snowstorm was starting. This snowstorm soon was to develop into New York's worst blizzard in 13 years. I boarded the plane after a 50-minute delay for mechanical repairs, but then the wings needed to be de-iced before takeoff. The de-icing was completed just after the airport shut down, so I found myself stranded in New York. Fortunately, Jerry was on sabbatical leave at Columbia at this point, and he invited me to stay with him and his family while waiting for the airport to open again. This wait stretched over three days. Jerry took full advantage of this time to counsel me to stay at Stanford and be a part of the exciting new OR program there. Conventional wisdom to the contrary, I have felt ever since that Jerry's sage advice was right for me. Once more, he had made a dramatic positive impact on my life. Several months later, Jerry and I began discussing the need for a new introductory textbook in operations research. We decided that we wanted to develop a path-breaking textbook that would help establish the direction of education in this emerging field. Jerry took the lead in negotiating with publishers and we soon chose Holden-Day, a new publishing company for whom Jerry was serving as a series editor. Although he was already a well-known book author (including his best selling "Engineering Statistics" textbook with Al Bowker) and I was an unknown, Jerry insisted that my name should come first (alphabetical order) and that I should share equally in his editor's royalties for the book in addition to splitting the authors' royalties. Jerry arranged for me to spend a year-long leave at Cornell after my first year on the Stanford faculty to broaden my horizons. Immediately after my return in June 1963, we began working hard on the book. Although there were a few OR books in print at that time (including the classic Churchman-Ackoff-Arnoff book), none were close to what we were envisioning. It was exciting to be developing a first-of-its-kind book that might establish a new educational pattern. This also gave us a heavy sense of responsibility to achieve the highest quality of which we were capable. It was a labor of love that would go on for well over three years, including much class testing and feedback from colleagues. "Introduction to Operations Research" finally was published in late 1967. Almost overnight, the reception was extremely gratifying. I was 31 and Jerry was 41. Over the years, Jerry continued to promote my career in many ways, large and small. Here are a few examples. It was Jerry who provided me with research support from the beginning and then arranged for me to have my own research contract. A few months after the publication of our book, it was Jerry who initiated and guided through my promotion to full professor. Several years later, I am quite sure that it was Jerry who promoted my nomination and election as treasurer of ORSA. Shortly thereafter, it was Jerry who arranged to have me selected to chair a Presidential Commission at Stanford. No one could ask for a more helpful mentor and champion. The dreams that Jerry shared with me during my student days about the future of OR at Stanford were to be realized largely through his leadership. He played a central role in establishing an interdepartmental Ph.D.-granting program in operations research in 1962, and he also chaired this program. Among our very first graduates were a future president of INFORMS (Art Geoffrion) as well as an editor in chief of Management Science (Don Morrison) and of Operations Research (Bill Pierskalla). The current president of INFORMS (Tom Magnanti) followed soon thereafter. In 1967, the program was given full departmental status, and Jerry continued to chair the Department of Operations Research for another eight years. Those 13 years of Jerry's chairmanship were a golden era for operations research at Stanford. He fostered an unusually congenial environment in the department. Jerry believed strongly that the department should be run democratically. He kept in close touch with each faculty member, keeping everybody well informed. He was a good listener and was always sympathetic to problems of faculty, staff and students alike. He also worked hard to secure needed resources from the university and elsewhere. At the same time, Jerry felt that having outstanding faculty was essential to a successful department, so he strongly supported excellence in appointments. Between 1962 and 1967, Pete Veinott, Dick Cottle, George Dantzig and Don Iglehart were brought to Stanford. Curtis Eaves was added to the faculty in 1970. Perhaps Jerry's master stroke during those years was securing a rare new senior faculty billet from the university and then using it to lure George Dantzig to Stanford in 1966. Based on comments George has made, it is my theory that the key factor in attracting him was the congenial environment in the department under Jerry. Following this coup, Stanford became even more widely acknowledged as a world leader in operations research. Outside of Jerry, the department's faculty at its beginning consisted of Ken Arrow, Dick Cottle, George Dantzig, myself, Rudy Kalman, Don Iglehart, Alan Manne and Pete Veinott, with Curtis Eaves joining soon thereafter. It is a reflection of the great spirit that Jerry engendered in the faculty that all but one of those individuals remain in the department to this day (some now in emeritus status). Jerry also fostered a supportive environment for students in the department. He personally enjoyed teaching students at all levels and was a popular dissertation advisor (as I can attest). Among his other Ph.D. students, Sheldon Ross went on to become a prolific textbook writer as well as a research collaborator with Jerry. Chris Albright, Andy Shogan and Howard Taylor all have participated in developing excellent textbooks. Both Bill Pierskalla and Matt Sobel became deans, and Bill also has held several other key leadership positions in the profession. The fact that Jerry was such a gifted leader of the OR program and department certainly did not escape the notice of the Stanford administration. In 1975, he began serving in a series of senior leadership positions in the university, including associate dean of Humanities and Sciences, vice provost and dean of Research, chair of the Faculty Senate, a member of the university Advisory Board, and chair of the Centennial Celebration Committee. In addition, he served as acting provost or provost under three different Stanford presidents. Jerry certainly would rank among Stanford's most preeminent university citizens in recent decades. Despite these heavy duties, Jerry never lost touch with the OR Department or the profession. At various times, he served as a national officer of four different professional societies, including as president of The Institute of Management Sciences in 1980-81. He also served on the editorial board of three journals and as a member of numerous advisory panels. In addition, he continued his research and maintained a long standing contract with the Office of Naval Research for research in the areas of statistical quality control, reliability theory and operations research. In 1996, he was awarded the Kimball Medal by INFORMS for his exceptional service to the profession. Jerry was the kind of individual who could carry heavy responsibilities while maintaining a balance in his life. He was very close to his family, including his wife Helen, their four grown children — Janet, Joanne, Michael and Diana — and their two grandchildren. I have fond memories of a time nearly 20 years ago when our two families were together for one summer week at the Stanford Sierra Camp. One day we rented a boat and spent the entire afternoon pulling our kids (his four and my three) water-skiing. It was very uncomfortable for the two of us, taking turns driving or sitting on our knees watching for lake traffic in this very bumpy boat for hours on end, but Jerry didn't mind because we were doing it for our kids. I shared a passion for sports with Jerry, including the various Stanford sports teams and the San Francisco professional teams. Starting in 1970, we shared three 49er season tickets together for nearly 25 years. For most of those years, we would take turns using the third ticket to take one of our children. We rejoiced and anguished together as the 49er fortunes rose and fell (fortunately, mostly rising in the later years). Jerry had to give this up in the early 1990s when his illness struck. However, even in 1995-96, when Ann and I were on sabbatical leave in England at Cambridge University, Jerry would faithfully e-mail me about once a week with the latest news from home — which mostly meant the latest sports news from home. It was getting difficult for him to operate his keyboard at that stage, but he never missed his communications to me. Even though we knew better, it gave us the happy illusion that everything was well again with Jerry. Jerry had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease). The symptoms started appearing in about 1991, and it became increasingly clear over the next couple years that something was wrong. However, the cause remained a secret as Jerry continued on as usual. Early in this period, he had been called back into duty to serve as the provost during the critical transition period between Stanford presidents, and Jerry was determined to see this through to the end of his term in the summer of 1993. He did, but just days after the 1993 commencement, Jerry had to be rushed to the hospital for an emergency tracheotomy. He would spend nearly six more years fighting this terrible progressive disease with great courage. This horrible development interrupted a big project that Jerry and I had just begun. During the 1980s, we had become increasingly concerned that management science textbooks were going off in the wrong direction by emulating our "Introduction to Operations Research" too much. Rather than wasting time teaching algorithms (and turning students off to OR/MS in the process), we felt that a radically different approach was needed for business students. We finally decided that we would develop what we hoped would be a path-breaking new management science textbook. As Jerry's illness progressed, I concluded that the only way we could realize our dream for this book, and so the only way I could pay full honor to Jerry, would be to take early retirement from Stanford and devote myself full time to textbook writing. I did this starting in September 1996. More than two additional years then were spent in carefully completing this book, striving to at least match the quality standard we had established with "Introduction to Operations Research." With help from my son Mark (a faculty member in the Management Science Department at the University of Washington and a spreadsheet aficionado), the new Hillier-Hillier-Lieberman textbook, "Introduction to Management Science: A Modeling and Case Studies Approach with Spreadsheets," was published by Irwin/McGraw-Hill just this fall. The dedication reads in part: "To the memory of one of the true giants of our field, Jerry Lieberman, who got to see the completion of this book but not its publication." Part of the pact that I made with myself is that I also would continue to devote myself to subsequent editions of "Introduction to Operations Research," maintaining a standard that would fully honor Jerry. At this moment, the seventh edition of this book has started into production, headed for publication next August. God willing, my goal is to continue future editions until at least the 50th anniversary of the book (18 years from now), and hopefully much longer. I feel that I am still improving as a textbook writer and I look forward to the challenge of continuing and enhancing the Hillier-Lieberman tradition. Following Jerry's trip to the emergency room in 1993, he and Helen held regular drop-in visiting hours at home every late afternoon right up until his passing on May 18, 1999. It was heart-warming to see the parade of visitors. He was loved and admired by an enormous number of friends at Stanford and elsewhere. To help honor his memory, Dick Cottle (cottle@soe.stanford.edu) is heading a drive to found an operations research fellowship at Stanford in his name. I have written this remembrance of Jerry from my personal perspective, but I know that he touched so many other lives in similar ways. I only wish that I could do justice to the remembrances that others could share as well. He was a wonderful role model who inspired so many. We deeply miss this remarkable man, but his spirit will live on in each of us. Frederick S. Hillier is professor of Operations Research, Emeritus, at Stanford University. While Hillier was a student and then faculty member at Stanford, Jerry Lieberman served as his freshman advisor, undergraduate advisor, graduate advisor, dissertation advisor, mentor and department chairman. They are co-authors of the classic textbook, "Introduction to Operations Research," first published in 1967 and about to enter its seventh edition. They also are co-authors (along with Hillier's son Mark) of the just published textbook, "Introduction to Management Science: A Modeling and Case Studies Approach with Spreadsheets." Table of Contents OR/MS Today Home Page OR/MS Today copyright © 1999 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. All rights reserved. Lionheart Publishing, Inc. 506 Roswell Street, Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060, USA Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969 E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com URL: http://www.lionhrtpub.com Web Site © Copyright 1999, 2000 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.