Frederick S. Hillier was born and raised in Aberdeen, Washington, where he was an
award winner in statewide high school contests in essay writing, mathematics, debate, and
music. As an undergraduate at Stanford University he ranked first in his engineering class
of over 300 students. He also won the McKinsey Prize for technical writing, won the
Outstanding Sophomore Debater award, played in the Stanford Woodwind Quintet, and won the
Hamilton Award for combining excellence in engineering with no-table achievements in the
humanities and social sciences. Upon his graduation with a B.S. degree in Industrial
Engineering, he was awarded three national fellowships (National Science Foundation, Tau
Beta Pi, and Danforth) for graduate study at Stanford with specialization in operations
research. After receiving his PhD degree, he joined the faculty of Stanford University,
where he earned tenure at the age of 28 and the rank of full professor at 32. He also
received visiting appointments at Cornell University, Carnegie-Mellon University, the
Technical University of Denmark, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), and the
University of Cambridge (England). After 35 years on the Stanford faculty, he took early
retirement from his faculty responsibilities in 1996 in order to focus full time on
textbook writing, and now is Professor Emeritus of Operations Research at Stanford.
Dr. Hillier’s research has extended into a variety of areas, including integer programming,
queueing theory and its application, statistical quality control, and the application of
operations research to the design of production systems and to capital budgeting. He has
published widely, and his seminal papers have been selected for republication in books of
selected readings at least 10 times. He was the first-prize winner of a research contest on
“Capital Budgeting of Interrelated Projects” sponsored by The Institute of Management
Sciences (TIMS) and the U.S. Office of Naval Research. He and Dr. Lieberman also received
the honorable mention award for the 1995 Lanchester Prize (best English-language
publication of any kind in the field of operations research), which was awarded by the
Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) for the 6th edition
of this book. In addition, he was the recipient of the prestigious 2004 INFORMS Expository
Writing Award for the 8th edition of this book.
Dr. Hillier has held many leadership positions with the professional societies in his
field. For example, he has served as Treasurer of the Operations Research Society of
America (ORSA), Vice President for Meetings of TIMS, Co-General Chairman of the 1989 TIMS
International Meeting in Osaka, Japan, Chair of the TIMS Publications Committee, Chair of
the ORSA Search Committee for Editor of Operations Research, Chair of the ORSA
Resources Planning Committee, Chair of the ORSA/TIMS Combined Meetings Committee, and Chair
of the John von Neumann Theory Prize Selection Committee for INFORMS. He continues to serve
as the Series Editor for Springer’s International Series in Operations Research and
Management Science, a particularly prominent book series that he founded in 1993.
In addition to Introduction to Operations Research and two companion volumes,
Introduction to Mathematical Programming (2nd ed.,1995) and Introduction to
Stochastic Models in Operations Research (1990), his books are The Evaluation of
Risky Interrelated Investments (North-Holland, 1969), Queueing Tables and Graphs
(Elsevier North-Holland, 1981, co-authored by O. S. Yu, with D. M. Avis, L. D. Fossett, F.
D. Lo, and M. I. Reiman), and Introduction to Management Science: A Modeling and Case
Studies Approach with Spreadsheets (3rd ed., McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2008, co-authored by M.
S. Hillier).
The late Gerald J. Lieberman sadly passed away in 1999. He had been Professor
Emeritus of Operations Research and Statistics at Stanford University, where he was the
founding chair of the Department of Operations Research. He was both an engineer (having
received an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Cooper Union) and an
operations research statistician (with an AM from Columbia University in mathematical
statistics, and a PhD from Stanford University in statistics).
Dr. Lieberman was one of Stanford’s most eminent leaders in recent decades. After chairing
the Department of Operations Research, he served as Associate Dean of the School of
Humanities and Sciences, Vice Provost and Dean of Research, Vice Provost and Dean of
Graduate Studies, Chair of the Faculty Senate, member of the University Advisory Board, and
Chair of the Centennial Celebration Committee. He also served as Provost or Acting Provost
under three different Stanford presidents.
Throughout these years of university leadership, he also remained active professionally.
His research was in the stochastic areas of operations research, often at the interface of
applied probability and statistics. He published extensively in the areas of reliability
and quality control, and in the modeling of complex systems, including their optimal
design, when resources are limited.
Highly respected as a senior statesman of the field of operations research, Dr. Lieberman
served in numerous leadership roles, including as the elected president of The Institute of
Management Sciences. His professional honors included being elected to the National Academy
of Engineering, receiving the Shewhart Medal of the American Society for Quality Control,
receiving the Cuthbertson Award for exceptional service to Stanford University, and serving
as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. In addition, the
Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) awarded him and Dr.
Hillier the honorable mention award for the 1995 Lanchester Prize for the 6th edition of
this book. In 1996, INFORMS also awarded him the prestigious Kimball Medal for his
exceptional contributions to the field of operations research and management science.
In addition to Introduction to Operations Research and two companion volumes,
Introduction to Mathematical Programming (2nd ed., 1995) and Introduction to
Stochastic Models in Operations Research (1990), his books are Handbook of
Industrial Statistics (Prentice-Hall, 1955, co-authored by A. H. Bowker), Tables of
the Non-Central t-Distribution (Stanford University Press, 1957, co-authored by G. J.
Resnikoff), Tables of the Hypergeometric Probability Distribution (Stanford
University Press, 1961, co-authored by D. Owen), Engineering Statistics, Second
Edition (Prentice-Hall, 1972, co-authored by A. H. Bowker), and Introduction to
Management Science: A Modeling and Case Studies Approach with Spreadsheets (McGraw-
Hill/Irwin, 2000, co-authored by F. S. Hillier and M. S. Hillier).
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