OR/MS Today - December 2000

December 2000

INFORMS News

Answering the Call to Service

For Kimball Medal honorees Abrams and Geoffrion, rewards amply repay efforts

Robert Abrams and Arthur Geoffrion, who combined have more than 50 years of service to INFORMS and its predecessors, ORSA and TIMS, received the George E. Kimball Medal during ceremonies at the INFORMS meeting in San Antonio.

Committee members John Jarvis and Randy Robinson made the presentations on behalf of chairman Hugh Bradley, who was unable to attend. The Kimball Medal is presented annually in recognition of distinguished service to the Institute and the professions of operations research and the management sciences.

Jarvis noted that Abrams, a professor of Information and Decision Sciences at the University of Illinois-Chicago, has a "passion" for operations research and the management sciences that dates back to Abrams' days as a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University in the 1960s.

After serving on a variety of committees throughout the 1970s and early 1980s (including general chair of the 1983 ORSA/TIMS Joint National Meeting in Chicago), Abrams was elected to the TIMS Council in 1983 as vice president of meetings. He was appointed by the Joint Council of ORSA and TIMS in 1989 to be their executive secretary, and subsequently he became chairman of the OR/MS Board, the Combined Councils of TIMS and ORSA. During this period, he served on the ad hoc committee preparing for the merger of ORSA and TIMS. Abrams was elected president of ORSA in 1993, serving a full term as president-elect, but an abbreviated term as president, ending in December 1994 when ORSA and TIMS merged. He then served, in 1995, as the first INFORMS vice president for international activities. In 1997, he was appointed to a three-year term as vice president of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies, representing INFORMS and the Canadian Operational Research Society. Within IFORS, he is responsible for meetings, once again.

Recalling that Bill Pierskalla first asked him to serve as a program chair 25 years ago, Abrams said that aside from helping promote the profession, it was the "opportunity to get to work with so many wonderful people that made it all worthwhile. It's been a wonderful experience."

In the second presentation, Robinson lauded Geoffrion for earning "high distinction in the world of operations research and the management sciences," noting that the UCLA professor has made "important contributions to our knowledge," while becoming "a leader and a role model."

Geoffrion served as president of INFORMS during a formative period, the citation continued, "when he set a lofty standard by inspiring other INFORMS activists to pursue productive new directions and by giving his caring time and attention in abundance."

Geoffrion earned a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford in 1965 and joined UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management, where he chaired the management science program and ultimately became James A. Collins Professor of Management. His research resulted in more than 60 published works. Specializing initially in optimization and its applications, he later developed the structured modeling formalism to improve model building. He took an early lead in anticipating the rise of the Internet and e-commerce, and in charting the associated role of OR/MS.

Early in his career, Geoffrion served on several ORSA and TIMS committees, and assumed a departmental editorship for the journal Management Science. He was elected president of TIMS, serving in 1982. In 1983 he founded the Management Science Roundtable of organizational members, now the INFORMS Roundtable. In 1992 he became the fourth person in history to receive the TIMS Distinguished Service Medal. He was elected the third president of INFORMS, serving in 1997.

Geoffrion's comprehensive vision for the future of INFORMS and OR/MS, underscored by his theme of a shared destiny of academia and practice and the Webification of INFORMS, instilled enthusiasm and energy in board members and other active volunteers. This in turn helped the Institute move from its focus on blending the ORSA and TIMS heritages to a focus on discovering and implementing better ways to advance the profession.

"For as long as I can remember, my greatest professional satisfactions have come from working on small teams with good people on projects that had a chance to make a difference," Geoffrion said in his acceptance remarks. "I owe a big debt of gratitude to INFORMS and before it, to ORSA and TIMS, for providing many opportunities to work on such teams over the years. Some succeeded, some didn't. Either way, I cherish the many friendships which were borne through those efforts."

Geoffrion closed with a few words for the audience on the value of service: "If anyone here has not yet tried professional service, I can assure you that your rewards will amply repay your efforts."

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