Full Circle ... Full Speed Ahead!
The year was 1991 and I was a newly minted member of the Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association. I had completed a master's degree in economics two years earlier and was two years into my career at Illinois Bell (yes, I'm old!). I was part of a management rotational program and after two years at corporate and in the field, I finally landed in my "home" department, Business Research. I was surrounded by a small team of brilliant statisticians, mathematicians, and economists where we built pricing models and demand forecasts in support of our products and annual regulatory filings.
Most importantly we were led by Ken Wollenberg, our Director and fearless leader. Ken was a BIG (literally and figuratively) supporter of the CCASA and insisted that all of us join. I still clearly remember Ken gathering all of us up each month to walk to the monthly luncheons together. While the speakers and topics were great, I enjoyed the camaraderie even more. I made new
friends and met new colleagues, many of whom I still work with today.
As my career progressed, I turned my attention to analytics consulting, more specifically marketing analytics. I also turned to other associations - The American Marketing Association and the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing. Yes, I even let my
CCASA membership lapse for many years. I enjoyed my work with other associations and still remain active with both today. However, what was most gratifying was to watch these other organizations become more focused on data, analysis and ... statistics!
So I happily returned to the CCASA a few years ago and what an exciting time it's been. Certainly no time in my 20+ year career has the theory, education, and practice of statistics been more relevant. Although the popular press may describe what we do these days as data science, data mining, or simply analytics, it's statistics that provides both the foundation and future of quantitative theory and analysis.
We have strived to reflect this in our programming the last few years. I'm proud of the variety of content and speakers we've presented through our luncheons, workshops, and conferences. We've hosted both industry and academic leaders ranging from quantitative finance to biostats to marketing analytics and we've had record attendance at our events.
This year, I hope to keep the momentum going and continue to deepen our connection between industry and academia. We're going to strive to keep the quality and diversity of our programming high. Most exciting of all is that it will culminate with our hosting of the Joint Statistical Meetings next July!
It's an honor to be your association President this year. I'm thrilled to be back and grateful to be surrounded by a fantastic Board of Directors . I'm excited to get the new year going and hope to see many of you at our events throughout the year! For those of you new to the CCASA, I encourage you to show up and get involved. I guarantee it will be good for you both personally and professionally, just as it has been for me ... full speed ahead!
Respectfully,
Joe DeCosmo
P.S. On a final note, I would like to recognize and thank Linda Clark for her many years of service to our association as she steps down from our Board of Directors. In June Ed Hirschland, members of our Board, and I had the honor of thanking Linda and presenting the following proclamation to her:
Linda M. Clark has provided boundless benefit to the Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association by serving on its board of directors for nearly half a century. She has been named a Fellow of the Chicago Chapter and has received the Chapter Recognition Award from the Council of Chapters. The Chicago Chapter honors and thanks her for her leadership, devotion, scholarship, business acumen, generosity, kindness and love of statistics.
Presented this twenty-eighth day of June in the year two thousand fifteen:
Edward C. Hirschland
President, 2014-2015
Joe DeCosmo
President, 2015-2016
Thank you, Linda!