Brief Biography
Gerald Hoffman was the 24th President of TIMS. He later became 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.
Education
BA (Physics) Purdue 1946
MS (Theoretical Physics) Purdue 1949
PhD (Industrial Engineering) Northwestern University 1975
Affiliations
Academic Affiliations
- Purdue University
- U. S. Naval Postgraduate School
- Northwestern University
- Purdue University
Non-Academic Affiliations
- Amoco Corporation
- The Gerald Hoffman Company
Key Interests in OR/MS
Methodologies
Awards and Honors
INFORMS Fellow (2002)
Professional Service
President, TIMS 1977-78
co-Founder, TIMS College of the Practice of Management Science
Selected Publications
Hoffman G. M. (1978) The Contribution of Management Science to Management Information. INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (Interfaces) 9(1):34-39 November 1978
Hoffman G. M. (1982) Project cost control: dynamic risk analysis of randomly ordered sequential decisions under uncertainty. INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (Interfaces), vol 12 no 3 June 1982
Hoffman G. M. (1986) Every manager is an information systems manager now, or, managing user-controlled information systems. Information & Management, vol 11 no 5, December 1986 Elsevier
Hoffman, G. M. (1994). The technology payoff: how to profit with empowered workers in the information age. Burr Ridge, Ill.: Irwin Professional Pub.
Hoffman G. M. (2004) Ethical Challenges for Information Systems Professionals. Chapter 4 of Brennan L. L. & Johnson V. E. eds Social, Ethical and Policy Implications of Information Technology, Hershey PA: Information Science Publishing