George Dantzig and Saul Gass (right) share a moment at a party and symposium Gass organized in honor of Dantizg's 85th birthday during the INFORMS meeting in Philadelphia in 1999.

I had joined the Air Force's Project SCOOP. To start me off, I was handed some reprints from the book "Activity Analysis of Production and Allocation," edited by the economist T. C. Koopmans. The papers were all authored or co-authored by George Dantzig. It was then that I first ran across the strange terms "linear programming," "the simplex method," "game theory" and the "transportation problem." Working directly for Walter, and indirectly for George, made my on-the-job training period an exciting learning experience. An early task that originated with George was the comparison of iterative schemes for solving Leontief systems. That work continued for awhile, and when George left in June to go to RAND, we corresponded about the results, with George offering his usual insightful advice. Although our initial personal relationship at Project SCOOP was short, we kept in touch over the years.

In 1963, I had a chance to study full-time for a Ph.D. My first choice was the U.C. Berkeley Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department because George was now a professor there. George also served as chairman of Berkeley's O.R. Center located a few miles off campus in Richmond. The Center provided office space for his Ph.D. students, and George and his students welcomed me aboard.

It was there, in October of 1963, that we broke out champagne and cake to celebrate the publication of George's classic text, "Linear Programming and Extensions." The text had an interesting geometric figure on the dust jacket, and George asked me if I could explain what it signified. I could — it was a three-dimensional vector view of the columns of a two-rowed matrix illustrating the simplex algorithm "climbing up the beanpole" to optimality. This column geometry was used by George in his famous urban legend Berkeley thesis and (see accompanying article), when applied to the linear-programming problem with the coefficients of the objective function as an added dimension, gave George confidence that the simplex algorithm would work in practice.

With George's guidance, I developed a dissertation topic and made it through the doctoral program. He was never too busy to show a personal interest in my studies; he gave of his time freely and unselfishly. During my oral exam, I reviewed a paper by Takács on queues and busy periods (discussing a paper outside your area of specialty was a requirement — this was really outside my box), and when I asked if there were any questions on my talk or other subject matter, George queried: "What's a convolution?" His was the only question!

Our friendship and my appreciation and love of George grew over the years. When I joined the University of Maryland, I recalled that George received his A.B. degree there in 1936, and his father, Tobias, had been chairman of the Mathematics Department. I thought it would be wonderful if George was honored by his alma mater. His nomination for an honorary degree was quickly approved, and George received his second Maryland degree 40 years after his first.

As part of the celebration, the College of Business and Management held a reception, and we invited a number of faculty members to meet and greet George. I made sure that Clopper Almon, an economist and former student of Leontief, was invited. While a student, Clopper had read and contributed to the chapters on prices and the decomposition principle in George's text. Clopper was most pleased to attend. He and George had never met!

For more than 50 years George was my friend and mentor. Being able to tell others that I knew George and how he influenced my career has been a source of great pride. Fortunately, I can still tell my "George stories," even though they have now been transformed into cherished memories.

Reminiscences of George B. Dantzig The Life and Times of the 'Father of LP' By Saul I. Gass   Gentle Soul Welcomed All to His World By Richard W. Cottle   He Made Powerful Ideas Seem Simple By Thomas L. Magnanti   Monumental Contributions Met the Test By Arthur F. Veinott Jr.   Never a Dull Moment with Brilliant GBD By Mukund Thapa

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