Frederick S. Hillier

Frederick S. Hillier is professor emeritus of operations research at Stanford University. He spent his career on the Stanford faculty after obtaining his undergraduate and graduate degrees there. His research has extended into various areas, including integer programming, statistical quality control, operations management, queueing theory, and risk analysis for capital budgeting. Two of his six books are in the latter two areas.

Fred is especially known for his classic, award-winning textbook, Introduction to Operations Research, co-authored with the late Gerald J. Lieberman. It was first published in 1967, exactly 50 years ago, and is now in its 10^th edition (with plans for 11^th edition). This book has been used by hundreds of thousands of students worldwide, including through translations into multiple languages. The book has received much credit for both raising the visibility of our field and attracting numerous individuals to enter the field. Its 6^th edition was awarded honorable mention for the 1995 INFORMS Lanchester Prize and Fred received the 2004 INFORMS Expository Writing Award for its 8^th edition.

Fred is also the co-author of another popular textbook, Introduction to Management Science: A Modeling and Case Studies Approach with Spreadsheets. (co-authored with his son, Mark S. Hillier). First published in 1999, its 6^th edition will appear in January, 2018. The book has received a substantial international audience, including through translations into four other languages.

Fred has further enriched the literature of our field by being the founding Series Editor of a book series, the International Series in Operations Research and Management Science, that he started in 1993 and developed into an exceptionally prominent Springer book series. When Fred retired from the series in 2013 on the 20^th anniversary of its founding, 200 books that he brought into the series had been published with several dozen more under contract for future publication.

Since becoming a member of ORSA and TIMS in 1960, Fred has taken on many leadership roles in INFORMS and these predecessor societies. He has served as the ORSA Treasurer, the TIMS Vice President for Meetings, and the Co-General Chairman of a TIMS International Meeting. He also has been the chairman of the following committees: the TIMS Publication Committee, the ORSA Search Committee for Editor of Operations Research, the ORSA Resources Planning Committee, the ORSA/TIMS Combined Meetings Committee, and the INFORMS Selection Committee for the John von Neumann Theory Prize. Fred was elected an INFORMS Fellow in 2004.

The winner of the 2004 Expository Writing Award is Frederick S. Hillier for his book Introduction to Operations Research, coauthored by Gerald J. Lieberman. If Jerry Lieberman were still alive, the Committee would have given the award jointly to both coauthors.

Over 37 years, successive editions of this book have introduced more than one-half million students to the field and have attracted many people to enter the field for academic activity and professional practice. Many leaders in the field and many current instructors first learned about the field via an edition of this book. The extensive use of international student editions and translations into 15 other languages has contributed to spreading the field around the world. The book remains preeminent even after 37 years. Although the eighth edition just appeared, the seventh edition had 46% of the market for books of its kind, and it ranked second in international sales among all McGraw-Hill publications in engineering.

Two features account for this success. First, the editions have been outstanding from students’ points of view due to excellent motivation, clear and intuitive explanations, good examples of professional practice, excellent organization of material, very useful supporting software, and appropriate but not excessive mathematics. Second, the editions have been attractive from instructors’ points of view because they repeatedly infuse state-of-the-art material with remarkable lucidity and plain language. For example, a wonderful chapter on metaheuristics was created for the eighth edition.

The Committee members, namely Martin Lariviere, Andrzej Ruszczynski and Matthew J. Sobel, are proud to designate Frederick S. Hiller as the recipient of the 2004 INFORMS Expository Writing Award.