John Neter

Mike Kutner, Ron Neter, and David Neter

John Neter

John Neter passed away December 6, 2022, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at age 99.

John is survived by his beloved wife of 71 years, Dorothy; his sons, Ron and David; their wives Mona and Ann; his granddaughters, Jordan, Chloe, and Celia; and his great-grandson, Eli.

Born in Mannheim, Germany, John lost his mother, Marie, at age eight. His father, Julius, had the foresight in 1935 to bring John to the United States to flee Nazi persecution. John’s memoir, My Father’s Greatest Gift: Freedom, refers to this fateful decision.

In Buffalo, New York, John was an active member of the Boy Scouts, where he made lifelong friends. He achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and credits scouting for his love of nature.

During World War II, he served in the Army and was stationed in Italy. It was courtesy of the GI Bill that he was able to go to college. He earned his BS from the University of Buffalo, his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, and his PhD from Columbia University.

John met the love of his life, Dorothy Rachman, on a blind date arranged by his older brother, Erwin, and her younger sister, Rhoda. From that instant, they were inseparable.

John’s academic career included faculty positions at Syracuse University and the University of Minnesota and was capped off by the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry distinguished professorship at the University of Georgia Terry School of Business in Athens, Georgia, from 1975–1989. In 1990, John was granted emeritus status as the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Professor of Management Sciences and Statistics at the University of Georgia.

Throughout his long career, John’s research interests have ranged from statistical sampling of accounting populations and response errors in sample surveys to statistical linear models. He is the co-author of Applied Linear Statistical Models, Applied Linear Regression Models, Applied Statistics, several monographs, and numerous journal articles.

John always thought his professional obligations as a university professor went beyond teaching, research, and service within the university to include service to organizations in the profession. Consequently, he was active in both the American Statistical Association and Decision Sciences Institute, the latter a relatively young organization at the time with members primarily from the business administration field. Each organization required three years of its president, one each as president-elect, president, and past president. Fortunately, John’s tours of duty were separated in time, with his presidency of the Decision Sciences Institute occurring from 1978–1980 and his presidency of the ASA from 1984–1986.

During his professional career, John was interested in decision-making based on good data. His interest was not only in the statistical methods used to aid decision-making, but also in the relevant data needed for making good decisions, hence his strong interest in sample surveys and formally designed statistical experiments. John was delighted to see in recent years the increasing emphasis on data-driven decision-making and the availability of larger, well-designed experimental studies. He was also pleased that the popular media were paying increased attention to the statistics field and the contributions made by statisticians. As in the days when John was active in the field, he noted statisticians (especially biostatisticians) continued to be challenged to work with other disciplines so the full benefits of statistical methodology could be achieved.

John’s analytical business skills played a key role during his ASA leadership years. One important issue John faced was acquiring an ASA office building. This was a major effort, involving site acquisition, building plans, fundraising, rental of unneeded space, and financing. The ASA rented office space in downtown Washington for many years, and the organization was quickly outgrowing it. ASA leadership also wanted the office to be located more conveniently for the many members from out of town who attended the numerous meetings held there each year. Management identified a suitable site and building in Alexandria, Virginia, and recommended proceeding with the purchase. John chaired a building acquisition committee, and they examined the feasibility of proceeding. Unfortunately, it was not the right time. However, a few years later, the ASA was able to move forward with their own building at a different site in Alexandria.

A second issue John faced during that time was the need to attract and retain applied statisticians. He considered the ASA’s publication policy and annual meeting format to make the ASA more attractive to applied statisticians. Finally, he played a major role in long-range planning, something the ASA had historically not engaged in. John asked Don Marquardt, then president-elect, to undertake the ASA’s first long-range planning effort. At that time, the ASA was also concerned with encouraging the teaching of statistics in public schools and promoting greater and better use of statistics and statisticians in the sciences.

John’s motivation for textbook writing goes back to the early 1950s, when Bill Wasserman and John were teaching statistics to business students at Syracuse University. None of the available elementary texts included interesting applications from business administration. Therefore, they decided to write their own introductory statistics text for business students that would motivate them to appreciate the usefulness of the statistical methods presented. The result is Fundamental Statistics for Business and Economics, which was published in 1956.

By about 1970, after several editions of the textbook, they decided to prepare a second-level statistics text for business and economics students. In addition to emphasizing applications in business and economics, they also wanted to unify the discussion of analysis of variance, covariance analysis, and regression. In most of the existing second-level texts, these topics were treated as separate subjects, hence students did not understand the common structure underlying these statistical methods. Furthermore, discussion of multiple regression and covariance analysis tended to focus on computational methods. It was apparent to them by 1970 that computers would easily enable statisticians to carry out linear model calculations and an extensive study of hand computation for linear models would not be required. Therefore, their presentation focused on the nature of the linear model and its uses and on diagnostic methods, rather than the hand computations required to invert a matrix.

As they began preparing materials for the second-level text, they realized they could not adequately cover the range of topics intended and include ample illustrations of applications in business and economics without the book becoming much too long. A major reduction in the scope of the second-level book was required, which led to linear models becoming the primary focus of the book.

The first edition of Applied Linear Statistical Models appeared in 1974. While preparing a second edition, the publisher, Richard Irwin, decided to also present only the regression material in a separate book that was published as Applied Linear Regression Models in 1983 with the addition of co-author Mike Kutner. The fourth edition of Applied Linear Regression Models was published in 2004, and the fifth edition of Applied Linear Statistical Models was published in 2005. Both McGraw-Hill/Irwin textbooks are co-authored by Mike Kutner and Chris Nachtsheim, for whom John was a mentor.

Academia.edu reports that 16,718 universities have adopted these textbooks, including the University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley, MIT, and Harvard University. Furthermore, the fifth edition of Applied Linear Statistical Models has been translated into Chinese, and soft cover versions are available outside the US and Canada.

John served in many capacities prior to his election as ASA president. His served in 1958 as president of the Twin Cities Chapter. And in 1962, when the National Statistical Meetings were held in Minneapolis, John chaired the local arrangements committee. In 1965, he was elected an ASA Fellow. In 1966, he headed the program committee for the National Statistical Meetings. He also served on several committees and two terms on the ASA Council. He was elected to the ASA Board of Directors for two terms, from 1974–1980, and he served as editor of The American Statistician from 1976–1980.

In addition to his academic career, John had many passions: photography; hiking; nature; classical music; symphony; opera; theater; art; traveling the world with Dorothy; and fine food. He was also devoted to his family near and far.

In 2006, John and Dorothy relocated to the Cedars of Chapel Hill Retirement Community, where they enjoyed retired life and made many close new friends. John was active, serving on many committees, including finance and long-range planning.

John was admired by all who knew him for his wisdom, kindness, and the many contributions to his community. He will be sorely missed.

John wrote several essays during the last few years of his life, including “On Our Understanding of Magnitudes.”

Ralph Folsom

Ralph Folsom Jr.

Ralph Folsom Jr., former chief scientist at RTI International and ASA Fellow, passed away on December 14, 2022, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Ralph majored in wildlife biology and minored in mathematics at Texas A&M University. He decided to build on his undergraduate statistics course and earned a master’s degree in experimental statistics from Iowa State University in 1966. Ralph started his professional career as a research associate and statistical consultant to the department of biostatistics, demography section, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1966–1969), where he designed and analyzed sample surveys. He joined RTI in 1969 as a statistician and became a chief scientist in 1998.

While working at RTI, Ralph earned his PhD in biostatistics from UNC in 1984. He served as task leader, project director, and principal investigator for many complex, high-profile projects, developing new statistical methods along the way. He was a past member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel to Evaluate the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the ASA working group to advise Census Bureau staff on the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the Board of Governors for the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics, and the Committee on National Statistics’ Panel on Statistical Methods for Measuring the Group Quarter Population in the American Community Survey.

Ralph’s 47-year career at RTI was filled with innovative advancements in survey data analyses. For example, his early work on developing Taylor series standard errors for balanced effects extended to Taylor series estimation of sampling errors for regression coefficients and became a basis for RTI’s SUDAAN software products for the analysis of complex survey and other clustered data. In the mid-1990s, he began developing small-area estimation methodologies to enable the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to produce reliable and cost-effective state- and local-level estimates in a timely manner. He developed survey-weighted empirical Bayes small-area estimation methodology for unit-level binary outcomes from complex survey data. Subsequently, he developed a full hierarchical Bayes version of survey-weighted empirical Bayes methodology and called it the survey-weighted hierarchical Bayes methodology. Ralph also collaborated with Babu Shah (developer of SUDAAN) to create a highly efficient, state-of-the-art survey-weighted hierarchical Bayes small-area estimation software. His innovative work on small-area estimation played a critical role in the expansion of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 1999, from a national design to the currently implemented state-stratified design.

In 2015, RTI awarded Ralph the Margaret Knox Excellence Award, recognizing his statistical innovation coupled with his approachable and collegial style, which made him an invaluable contributor to RTI’s scientific reputation.

Ralph was preceded in death by his parents and an infant sister. He is survived by his wife, Margaret, of Raleigh. Read his full obituary and share condolences.

Here’s what some of Ralph’s colleagues had to say about working with him:

John Wistar Rogers

John Wistar Rogers, longtime ASA member, passed away March 23, 2023.

Rogers, a statistician who worked at Westat for 35 years, was widely recognized for his work in environmental survey measurement error and developing a methodology for correcting the bias that can result. His work helped the Department of Housing and Urban Development better estimate the extent of lead hazards in housing. His work was also featured in many publications and conference presentations.

Rogers was an avid sailor and member of the Sailing Club of Washington, DC, where he was leader of the training and skipper certification committee. In addition to sailing, Rogers had a passion for woodworking, and, over the years, he designed beautiful pieces for his family and friends.

To read more about Rogers’ life and work, view his full obituary.