In Memoriam, John Kettelle

The INFORMS Board, Administration, and membership extend condolences to the family of John Kettelle, a long-time member of ORSA/TIMS/INFORMS, WORMSC/WINFORMS, and MORS, who passed away Thursday, May 31.

Early in his career, John Kettelle partnered with Daniel H. Wagner to perform innovative analyses of military operations research problems. Later he founded Ketron, which grew to some 300 people by the mid-1990s and became a major resource and contributor to OR/MS. Among Mr. Kettelle's more noteworthy contributions were improvements in search theory and the invention of its counterpart, hide theory, in anti-submarine warfare; the MPS III solver for linear and integer programming; interesting approaches to deciding when industries, especially in the transportation arena, could do better via integration of activities and facilities; and the theory and software necessary for the use of computerized third parties to mediate negotiations.

His many friends and colleagues remember him as well for his lively intellect, his quick sense of humor, his wealth of amusing and informative anecdotes, his breadth of interests and experience, and his generosity and mentoring to beneficiaries too numerous to identify.