TIMS President, 1976-77
Sidney (Sid) Hess was the 23rd President of TIMS after having been Secretary for six years. He earned one of the first PhD’s in O.R.
Hess organized the first Gordon Research Conference on O.R. which evolved into the annual summer workshops of the Colleges of Practice, Marketing, and Information Science. He was a founding member of the MS Roundtable and the TIMS Delaware Valley Chapter. He helped change the climate of suspicion and animosity that existed then between TIMS/ORSA into one of cooperation, including establishing the Joint Council of the two societies who co-sponsored meetings and journals. He chaired the subcommittee that recommended the INFORMS name and logo.
Since the mid-1980’s he served on or chaired public relations committees of both TIMS and INFORMS to acquaint potential clients and employers with the accomplishments and benefits of OR/MS. IN 1982 he received the TIMS Distinguished Service Medal, one of only five ever awarded. He is a Fellow of INFORMS.
Sid had been introduced to O.R. as a Lieutenant assigned to the Chemical Corps Operations Research Group (1954-1956)
Sid’s research focused on modeling and implementation of the solution of real-world problems, .e.g.,
- The first computer program for legislative redistricting, which he later adapted to sales territorial realignment.
- R&D Project selection through modeling with dynamic programming and decision trees.
His experience includes both practice and teaching. He was Manager of OR at Atlas Chemical Industries (1959 – 1966). He was Associate Professor at the Wharton School, including Director of its Management and Behavioral Science Center (1966 -1976). He returned to industry as Director of Pharmaceutical Development at ICI Americas (1974 – 1986) retiring as VP/General Manager of the Aerospace Division at ICI. Then back to academe as Professor of Management at Drexel University (1986 - 1996).
BSChE, 1953, MIT; PhD (Operations Research), 1960, Case Institute of Technology; Fulbright Fellow (Netherlands) 1954