Minutes of the Optimization Society (OS) Business Meeting during the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, October 26, 2004.

1. The meeting was called to order by Renato Monteiro, OS Chair at 6:35 p.m. The following OS members were present: Stephen Billups, Jerry O'Neal, Miguel Anjos, Samuel Burer, Wilbert Wilhelm, Tito Homem-de-Mello, Janny Lewig, Janos Pinter, Zsolt Ugray, Endre Boros, Leon Lasdon, Kevin Furman, Clayton Commander, Alper Yildirim, Mihai Anitescu, Nick Sahinidis, Pitu Mirchandani, Robin Lougee-Heimer, Giovanni Righini, Hande Benson, Steve Benson, Mohammad Oskoovouchi, Bala Krishnamoorthy, Kartik Krishnan, Matthew Galati, Ted Ralphs, David Gay, Joao Goncalves, Eva Lee, Jiane Zhang, Tamas Terlaky, Renato Monteiro. Additionally, the following nonmembers were present: William Hager, Hongchao Zhang, Carlos Oliveira, Kenneth Holmstrom, Rosemary Berger, Lou Hafer, Laszlo Ladany.

2. OS Officer Report (by Renato Monteiro).
   The results of the 2004 election of officers were as follows:

   1. Secretary/Treasurer (1 year term): Eva Lee (replacing Stephen Billups).
   2. Vice Chair of Global Optimization (2 year term): Mohit Tawarmalani (replacing Janos Pinter).
   3. Vice Chair of Stochastic Programming (2 year term): Andrzej Ruszczynski (replacing Alexander Shapiro).
   4. Vice Chair of Nonlinear Programming: Sven Leyffer (replacing Yin Zhang).

   The remaining officers are as follows: Tamas Terlaky (previously Chair-Elect) will begin a 2 year term as chair of the OS (replacing Renato Monteiro). The following Vice-chairs will serve the final year of their two-year terms: Ismael Farias (Vice Chair of Integer Programming), Florian Potra (Vice Chair of Linear Programming and Complementarity), Lisa K. Fleischer (Vice Chair of Network Flow Programming).

3. OS Chair Renato Monteiro awarded Jiawei Zhang the 2004 optimization prize for young researchers for his paper titled ``Approximating the two-level facility location problem via a quasi-greedy approach.’’ The prize committee consisted of Tamas Terlaky, Eva Tardos, Richard Tapia, Nick Sahinidis, and Andrzej Ruszczynski. Jiawei was given a plaque and a check for $1000. Jiawei then gave a 15 minute presentation of his work.
4. Secretary/Treasurer report (by Stephen Billups):
   1. The final audited report for year 2003 indicates that the OS received $3,820.00 in revenue from membership dues (including a credit of $785 from 2002, which corrected an accounting error that was discovered at the end of 2003). Additionally, the OS received 52.36 in interest, for a total of $3,872.36 in revenue.
   2. Expenses in 2003 totaled $2566.51, broken down as follows: $1000 for the Optimization Prize, $135.14 for the prize plaque, $222.30 for advertising for the Optimization Prize in SIAM News, $302.47 for postage, $868.10 for refreshments for the fall meeting, and $38.50 for labor from INFORMS headquarters.
   3. The year end balance for 2003 was $10,675.59.
   4. The (unaudited, and incomplete) financial report for 2004 as of 10/1/04 indicates dues revenue of $1972.00 and expenses of $352.50. The major expenses for the year have not yet been recorded. Current balance as of 10/1/04 was $12,295.09.
5. Section and Society Committee Report (by Tamas Terlaky):
   Tamas mentioned that the Sections and Societies Council has been discussing rules for promotion to a society, and rules for demoting societies that fail to meet minimum membership requirements
6. Ilya Hicks gave a 5 minute overview of the planning for the 2005 INFORMS Annual Meeting, which will be held in New Orleans on November 13-16, 2005
7. Matt Saltzman gave a 2 minute update on the COIN-OR initiative. COIN-OR stands for COmputational INfrastructure for Operations Research, which is an initiative to spur the development of open-source software for the operations research community. Matt announced that the COIN-OR foundation now exists, complete with a board and a technology council. More information is available at the COIN-OR website www.coin-or.org.
8. Discussion of Proposal for new Optimization Conference.
   1. Renato Monteiro presented a proposal to hold a biannual conference of the Optimization Society, beginning January, 2006. Each conference will be held in cooperation with one other INFORMS subdivision. The 2006 meeting would be in conjunction with the Health Applications Section. There would also be a new optimization prize in conjunction with the meeting.
   2. Renato invited discussion of this proposal: Tamas clarified that the conference would be held every other year. David Gay said that there are too many conferences already. Someone else expressed that the conference is a good idea, but there are many other INFORMS subdivisions holding meetings in the same part of the year. Someone else said they agreed with the idea of linking the conference with another subdivision; this would help make other groups aware of optimization tools that could help them with their problems. Mihai Anitescu asked if there would be proceedings. Tamas Terlaky replied that this was not planned at this point, but that it is possible if the organizers have enough energy. Mihai then asked if we should discuss the new prize. Renato Monteiro said not now. Tamas said to send him email if you have ideas about a new prize.
9. The meeting was adjourned at 7:25 p.m