Jim Cochran

Last fall, Bob Hogg, who served as ASA president in 1988, was working with me on an interview for the ASA Leaders Reminisce series. Sadly, on December 23, 2014, Bob passed away in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Even at 90, Bob’s responses to my email about this initiative were sharp and insightful, and his story would have been of great interest to the readers of Amstat News.

I had met Bob briefly several times; the first time was in 1995 at the fist JSM I attended. I was on an elevator in either the Swan or Dolphin Hotel (the 1995 conference was held at these Disney World hotels). Bob boarded the elevator and I immediately and inarticulately told him how much I enjoyed studying from the book Introduction to Mathematical Statistics that he had written with Allen Craig. Bob looked at me, quickly surmised I was a very green graduate student, and immediately dove into a conversation with me. When the elevator door opened at my floor, I certainly was not ready for this brief conversation to end. Without hesitation, Bob got off the elevator with me. We talked for about 15 minutes—mostly about my research and my career aspirations—and then he got back on the elevator to go to his floor.

Bob was smart, funny, generous, and personable—and he was passionate about statistics. He was also a highly decorated statistician; the many awards he received include the Mathematical Association of America Award for Distinguished Teaching, ASA Fellow, the ASA Founder’s Award, and the Regent’s Award for Faculty Excellence. The statistics community benefited greatly from Bob’s contributions. We will miss him.