TIMS President, 1977-78
Gerald Hoffman was the 24th President of TIMS. He is currently a consultant specializing in technology management.
Dr. Hoffman has followed two intertwined careers, one in management science and information technology, and the other creating new businesses as both entrepreneur and intrapreneur. These two careers are connected by a common thread: the use of technology to improve operational performance. He has done pioneering work in identifying and quantifying benefits of technology in business, much of which is recorded in his book “The Technology Payoff” (ISBN 0-595-19909-7). He spent a large part of his career at Amoco Corporation, serving as Manager of Operations Research and later as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Amoco Computer Services Company.
Dr. Hoffman was a co-founder of the TIMS College on the Practice of Management Science, and was co-program chairman of the TIMS international meeting in Brisbane, Australia in 1986. He was also President of The Society for Information Management, and is a Fellow of INFORMS and of The American Association for the Advancement of Science. The most significant organizational issue during his presidency was the idea of merging TIMS with ORSA. Analysis showed that this move was not timely and the idea was tabled until the 1990’s, culminating in the formation of INFORMS in 1995.
BA and MS (Industrial Engineering) Purdue; Ph.D (Industrial engineering) Northwestern