Rob Santos

I never really had someone I could call a mentor—a senior-level career person who over the course of my career could be an occasional sounding board and source of sage advice. I did have a couple of short-term mentors. These are folks who, say, over a summer or a semester of grad school selflessly gave of themselves to advise and guide me as a deer-in-the-headlights student who “didn’t know what he didn’t know.” Such short-term guidance helped me greatly.

Speaking of short-term mentors, the late demographer and urban planning researcher Leo Estrada quickly comes to mind. I mentioned him in my February column as someone who “showed me the ropes” during my first JSM in 1979 and graciously introduced me to many attending statisticians at mixers and sessions. Without his encouragement and guidance during that conference in Washington, DC, I may well have left statistics altogether. The emotional trauma I experienced is not something I can forget. But Leo helped me overcome that, and here I am today. In a real sense, he acted as a “guardian angel,” providing what I needed at exactly the time I needed it so I could embrace my vulnerabilities and move on.

There are other types of guardian angels, too. In 2006, I experienced one of the greatest honors of my career by receiving the ASA Founder’s Award. It came out of nowhere; I had no idea I was even being considered for such recognition, even at the awards ceremony. (I was just instructed to be sure I attended the ceremony that night.) What I hadn’t realized was great leaders like Fritz Scheuren and the other members of the Founders Award Committee were aware of me, my career accomplishments, and my contributions to our beloved association over the years.

What was more surprising is that my first professional encounter with Fritz was disappointing. He was an associate editor of the Journal of Business & Economic Statistics (if memory serves correct) in the early 1980s and had secured a commitment from me to review a manuscript as a referee. Well, the assignment almost immediately fell off my radar and I never completed it. I apologized to Fritz after it was too late and promised that would not happen again if he ever needed me to do a review in the future. He politely responded with something like, “We’ll see.” I was sure I’d appear on his ‘unreliable’ list for the rest of my career. But as we all know, Fritz is a much greater human being than that, and he and the other members of the award committee saw fit to bestow upon me the Founders Award a couple decades later.

What really struck me about this episode was that we as a statistical community don’t need to have close connections with others to reinforce each other’s value to our community and to offer support and recognition. It is not mentoring in any sense of the word. Instead, it reflects a different type of helping and community-building—being a guardian angel, a tutelary, a guardian of our statistical galaxy. Call it what you want.

I would like to think we have an obligation to look out for each other, even if we do not know each other personally. This can happen in ways such as nominating a person to be on a committee or run for office, especially if that person is an early or mid-career statistician. Or even asking someone to review a piece of work when they are actively building knowledge in that area.

This actually happened to me a couple years ago when fellow ASA member Bill O’Hare asked me to review research he completed on the association between decennial census self-response rates and net under-coverage of demographic subpopulations. The review benefitted me in terms of knowledge gain much more than the feedback I provided to him, and I expect Bill understood that. (Thank you, Bill!)

On countless occasions, I have been contacted by a colleague seeking to hire a statistician and immediately informed a handful of folks about the opportunity in case they were interested in career advancement. And over the years, I have forwarded many a résumé to hiring decision-makers on behalf of folks who asked me to “keep a look out for anything interesting.” This has been at all levels—from research assistant to president of an organization. I have also forwarded newly released research to folks I knew were interested in the topic. Even these little actions help promote a community that reinforces itself by helping each other. I will note I have shamelessly helped “rival” organizations find new hires and passed along new research findings to them. To me, when our statistical community is strengthened, we all benefit. After all, there is nothing wrong and everything right about helping each other.

And of course, being a guardian angel can and should extend beyond our statistical community. It is rewarding to provide statistical services to local, regional, and/or national organizations whose missions are to help communities and people.

I worked with Feeding America for almost 15 years, applying my statistical thinking to the challenges of addressing hunger in America. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. In the 1980s, I helped Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project in San Antonio design and conduct exit polls of Latinx voters. I’ve advised and mentored early-career policy researchers in a variety of organizations, regardless of whether they wanted to be statisticians. Building community is foundational to creating a better society.

I’ll leave you once again with the thought that building community is critical for us, both in our statistical community and in society more generally. Yes, we can be mentors, but we can and should also be guardian angels. Note that being a guardian angel requires you to be aware of your colleagues and fellow association members. Please continue to grow your networks so the full power and effect of your efforts can be realized. Remember, striving to be the best human being you can be by embracing and living your values can make you a better statistician and facilitate a full, rewarding career. So, think about how you can be a more effective guardian angel!