{"60828":{"#nid":"60828","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Ellis Johnson: Deep Roots at Georgia Tech","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile\nstudents were coming to California\nfrom all over the world to study in the same program with the man considered\nthe father of linear programming, the esteemed George Dantzig, Ellis Johnson\nstumbled upon the great teacher, who recognized Johnson\u2019s gift and took him on\nas his student. In the nearly fifty years since, Johnson, now the Coca Cola\nchair in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering\n(ISyE), has sealed his own place in the discipline of Operations Research (OR),\nhaving made significant contributions to the field both in academia and while\nworking at IBM\u2019s T.J. Watson Research facility. For his efforts, Johnson has\nbeen recognized with numerous awards, including the George Dantzig Prize, and\nan IBM Corporate Fellow, which was responsible for bringing him back to his\nGeorgia roots.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EA\nnative of Georgia, Johnson grew up on a farm near Athens. Though Johnson\u2019s\nfather initially wanted his sons and daughter to attend the University of Georgia,\nJohnson\u2019s older brother, Fred, prevailed in coming to Georgia Tech, and Johnson\nfollowed in his footsteps. The deciding factor for their father was Tech\u2019s\nco-op program, which provided the opportunity to pay for college while gaining\nvaluable work experience. \u0026nbsp;Johnson,\nwho was initially an aerospace engineering major, spent two quarters as a co-op\nstudent at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which later became\nNASA, at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter\nchanging his major to math, Johnson was able to piece together a small\nscholarship, summer and part-time jobs, parental support, and previous savings\nto complete his degree. He excelled as an\nundergraduate math major and was encouraged to continue his education at the\nUniversity of California at Berkely. At a summer job between completing his\nmasters in math and starting his PhD program, Johnson discovered operations\nresearch, and that discovery changed the trajectory of his education and career\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThough he had gone to UC Berkeley to\nstudy probability theory, Johnson said that \u201coperations research just seemed to\nme to be a much better thing for me to do than what I was doing.\u201d So Johnson\nchanged his major. He registered for his first OR course, which the director of\nthe program was teaching. As it turned out, that director was George Dantzig, a\nname which meant little to Johnson at the time; however, Johnson soon learned\nthat Dantzig was \u201csort of the leading light\u201d in OR. As that first year\nprogressed, a mutual respect developed between the teacher and student, and a\nbond formed between the two that lasted through the remainder of Dantzig\u2019s\nlife. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003ECrediting Dantzig with setting his\ncareer for him, Johnson explains that his first job after completing his PhD\nwas teaching in the industrial administration program at Yale University. During a\njunior faculty sabbatical at ETH [the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology] in\nZurich, Johnson discerned\nthat he wanted to go into a research environment rather than return to\nYale.\u0026nbsp; Though Dantzig, by then at Stanford University, courted\nJohnson to join him at Stanford, Johnson declined, instead accepting an offer\nhe had received from IBM. However, Johnson explains that had it not been for\nDantzig, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have known those people at IBM, and they would not have\nknown [of] me.\u201d In the end, that experience gave Johnson the chance to work\nwith OR luminaries such as Phil Wolfe, Alan Hoffman and Ralph Gomory.\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter nearly a quarter century with\nIBM, Johnson decided that he wanted to return to Georgia Tech as a member of\nits faculty, but in 1990, IBM offered him a prestigious IBM Fellow. Such\nappointments entitled Fellows to a five-year period of relative freedom in\ntheir work. Johnson thought, \u201cIf I\u2019ve got that kind of freedom, I want to\ncontinue to work with the software we\u2019ve developed at IBM, but I also want to\ncome to Georgia Tech and set up a Computational Optimization Center with George\nNemhauser,\u201d the A. Russell Chandler III chaired professor in ISyE.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs an\nIBM employee, Johnson worked with Nemhauser in setting up classes at Georgia\nTech as well as establishing collaborative relationships with users of the\nsoftware. Then, in 1995, after the five years ended, Johnson retired from IBM and\njoined the Georgia Tech faculty as the newly endowed Coca Cola chaired\nprofessor in ISyE. With that title, Johnson shared the distinction with\nNemhauser of being the first two endowed chair-holders in ISyE.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;For Johnson, however, returning to\nhis roots did not just mean returning to Georgia Tech. As a farm boy, Johnson\u2019s\nroots grow deep in Georgia\nsoil. When he\u2019s not in Atlanta,\nor teaching in Georgia-Tech\u2019s Dual Masters program in Shanghai, Johnson is at home on his 100-acre\nfarm in Madison,\n Georgia.\nAppropriately called the 100- Acre Farm, Johnson\u2019s land, eighty-six acres of\nwhich has been set aside as a conservation easement,\u0026nbsp; is situated where the Apalachee River runs\ninto Lake Oconee. Miles of trails run through woods and alongside creeks and\nponds. And so that others can enjoy the land, Johnson also established the\nFarmhouse Inn Bed \u0026amp; Breakfast, which in addition to serving eggs from their\nown farm-raised chickens, is also one of the top ten bird watching B\u0026amp;Bs in\nthe country. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Bringing his worlds together, for the\npast three summers Johnson has hosted Chinese exchange students at his farm and\nshown them Madison\u2019s\nsouthern charm. Though, as Johnson explains, it\u2019s the student\u2019s choice about\nhow to spend their time, many like to make this trip to Madison. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EOffering students the opportunity for\na shared learning experience is consistent with Johnson\u2019s teaching\nphilosophy.\u0026nbsp; One of the things Johnson\ncares about is collaboration. \u201cI use the analogy of a tapestry,\u201c he explains.\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got threads, and some of the threads break, and it weakens the whole\nthing.\u201d Continuing, Johnson says that he tells his students: \u201cDon\u2019t be the\nthread that breaks; be the thread that fills in and makes it work.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe thread that runs continuously\nthrough Johnson\u2019s own tapestry brought him back to Georgia.\nThough coming home was an important consideration for Johnson, the real tug was\nbeing at Georgia Tech and holding the Coca Cola chair.\u0026nbsp; In Johnson\u2019s experience, Tech is a positive\nplace, and there\u2019s a degree of flexibility in making things happen that is\nunusual for a state school. According to Johnson, people know what they are\ndoing, they know what they have to do, and they feel they can do it. At the end\nof the day, Johnson said, \u201cIt just makes me feel better to be here.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile\nstudents were coming to California\nfrom all over the world to study in the same program with the man considered\nthe father of linear programming, the esteemed George Dantzig, Ellis Johnson\nstumbled upon the great teacher, who recognized Johnson\u2019s gift and took him on\nas his student. In the nearly fifty years since, Johnson, now the Coca Cola\nchair in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering\n(ISyE), has sealed his own place in the discipline of Operations Research (OR),\nhaving made significant contributions to the field both in academia and while\nworking at IBM\u2019s T.J. Watson Research facility.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Ellis Johnson: Deep Roots at Georgia Tech"}],"uid":"27328","created_gmt":"2010-09-07 13:27:37","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:23","author":"Edie Cohen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-09-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-09-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"60829":{"id":"60829","type":"image","title":"Ellis Johnson,Coca Cola chaired professor in ISyE","body":null,"created":"1449176296","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:58:16","changed":"1475894528","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:08","alt":"Ellis Johnson,Coca Cola chaired professor in ISyE","file":{"fid":"191222","name":"Johnson_Ellis_-_Bust.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Johnson_Ellis_-_Bust_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Johnson_Ellis_-_Bust_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2430690,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Johnson_Ellis_-_Bust_0.jpg?itok=cyepdsHy"}}},"media_ids":["60829"],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"513","name":"Ellis Johnson"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"426","name":"isye"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mail\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara \nChristopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}