RAND history

The first RAND report on dynamic programming was published in 1953.

Charles Zwick joined RAND in 1956, two years after receiving his PhD in economics at Harvard, where he taught after earning his degree.

Bellman E. R. (1957). Dynamic Programming.

The book promoted deterrence, including the capability to launch a second strike, and the need for "Thinking About the Unthinkable," the title of his 1962 book.

Much of the work of this period is captured in Dantzig’s (1963) book, Linear Programming and Extensions.

SDC was spun off from RAND and became a for-profit corporation in 1965.

Gruenberger F. J. (1968) The History of the Johnniac.

R-811-PR, November 1971, Santa Monica CA: RAND. (link)

The Delphi procedures grew out of this effort (Dalkey, et al., 1972). These procedures incorporate anonymous response, iteration and controlled feedback, and statistical group response to elicit and refine group judgments where exact knowledge is unavailable.

Warren Walker and Peter Kolesar were awarded ORSA’s 1974 Lanchester Prize for a paper that described how mathematical programming methods were applied to the problem of relocating available fire companies to firehouses vacated temporarily by companies fighting fires.

In April 1975, RAND began a joint research venture with the Dutch government to compare the consequences of three alternative approaches for protecting the Oosterschelde, the largest Dutch estuary, from flooding.

Walker W. E., Chaiken J. M., & Ignall E. J. (Eds.). (1979). Fire Department Deployment Analysis: A public policy analysis case study.

The project won a Franz Edelman Award for Management Science Achievement in 1984.

In 1989, Markowitz was awarded the Von Neumann Prize in Operations Research Theory for his work in the areas of the SIMSCRIPT programming language (see below), portfolio theory, and sparse matrix techniques.

Orchard-Hayes W (1990) History of the Development of LP Solvers.

CLOUT derived some important ideas from the DRIVE model (Distribution and Repair in Variable Environments), developed by John Abell et al. (1992), that became the kernel of a management system, called EXPRESS, that is still used today in Air Force depots.

Many highlights of RAND's early contributions were summarized in a 1996 book (PDF) commemorating the 50th anniversary of Project RAND.

In 1997 he received the INFORMS President's Award.

Brooks et al. won that prize in 1998.