Roll Call Tribute

Published in The Washington (D.C.) Post on Nov. 16, 2014

RALPH L DISNEY

DISNEY RALPH LYNDE DISNEY, JR. Professor Emeritus of Industrial Engineering Texas A & M University died on November 11, 2014. Ralph was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1928 and lived there until 1956. Ralph attended McDonogh High School in Glyndon, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, from 1941 until 1946. He earned nine letters in football, basketball and baseball, wrote for the school newspaper and was Captain of the Band in that military school. In 1946, he entered Johns Hopkins University, left for financial and academic reasons in 1948. In 1950, at the urging and encouragement of Dr. Robert H. Roy, Disney returned to Hopkins and completed his Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering in 1952, and MSE degree in 1955. He owed a debt of gratitude to Dean Robert Roy for giving him a second chance after leaving the University. He graduated from Hopkins with his advanced degree (Dr. Engr.) in 1964 under the mentorship of Dr. Bruce Clarke, a well- known probabilist. At Hopkins, he played baseball for two years (1946-1948) and was elected a member of the H Club, Hopkins' association of former athletes. As an undergraduate he was inducted into the Tudor and Stuart Club, an honorary gathering of students and faculty interested in English and History studies. He was proud of this appointment as he was one of the few engineering students admitted to that club. In 1955, while in graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, Ralph accepted a position with the Operations Research Office (ORO) in Bethesda, Maryland. It was during this time that he met and later married Lois Loghry DuFrain, one of the few women in the field of Operations Research at the time. They were co-workers and also classmates in the School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins. They got married in 1955, which cost Lois her job at ORO. A little over a year later, they celebrated the birth of their first daughter, Lynn, who was born in Bethesda, Maryland. He started his teaching career as a full time tutor in 1952. In 1956, he, Lois and Lynn moved to Beaumont, Texas where he began teaching at the University level with only a Master of Science in Engineering degree (MSE) at Lamar University (formerly Lamar State College of Technology). In 1956, he enrolled one of the first black students after the 1955 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. That was an act of some courage as many of the citizens of the town were strongly opposed to the integration ordered by that decision. Shortly after the birth of their second child, Carrie, the family moved to Buffalo, New York (1959-1962) where Dr. Disney became Associate Professor at the University of Buffalo (now called, The State University of New York at Buffalo). He attended an early course sponsored by the National Science Foundation in Ruston, Louisiana on mini-computers and, upon returning from the course, set up the first scientific computing laboratory for the University. In 1962, after the birth of their son Edward, Disney was invited to be a Visiting Professor in the Industrial Engineering department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ralph and Lois used to joke that each rung of the ladder in his career resulted in a promotion, a move and a child. They were often asked if they were a military family, due to all of the moves. He stayed at the University of Michigan for 15 years eventually rising to the level of Full Professor. He and other faculty members restructured the Industrial Engineering curriculum an approach that was copied by many other departments in throughout the country. In the process, he created new courses in applied probability and stochastic processes, and with Dr. Bruce Clarke, co-wrote two text books on the subject. In 1977, Dr. Disney was invited to be the Charles O. Gordon Professor of Industrial Engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He established an internationally recognized program in his area of expertise which attracted postdoctoral students and fellow researchers from around the world to lecture and become involved in his projects. In 1988, Dr. Disney joined the Faculty at Texas A & M University, retiring from there in 1996. Disney was a world leader in queueing theory a branch of applied probability and stochastic processes mathematics. He authored or co-authored over 70 research articles, three books and numerous chapters in compendia in his field. Most of this work was sponsored by either the National Science Foundation or the Office of Naval Research. He was a prolific reviewer of articles both pre- and post-publication, including over 150 reviews for the Mathematics Reviews. He advised and mentored over 20 doctoral students from around the world and in different academic disciplines. Dr. Disney was appointed to many committees concerned with editorial and curricular matters. He served as Associate Editor, Editor or technical advisor to many of the technical publications of his and related fields. He was the Senior Editor of the research journal of the Industrial Engineering Institute. He was a founder of the Applied Probability College in the Operations Research Society of America (now the International Federation of Operations Research and Management Sciences) and the forerunner of the Research Conference of the Institute of Industrial Engineering (IIE). Disney lectured at research forums and in many of the major research centers throughout the world. In 1970 he became the Organization of American States (OAS) Professor at the Aeronautics Institute in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil and subsequently spent time at the University of Sao Paulo in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 1975, he was appointed a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. He was invited to lecture at several universities in Japan and later was named an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand (1995-1996). During 1995, he consulted with and jointly performed research with faculty members at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand, and he lectured in both Thailand and Singapore. Disney earned many honors for his work including the David Baker Award and the Albert Holzman Award for teaching, research and other contributions to his field. He was named as the recipient of the Frank and Lillian Gilbreath Award, the highest honor bestowed on any Industrial Engineer, for his many contributions to IIE, in 1996. He served on the Council of INFORMS and was a Fellow of that society as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 1999, Dr. Disney was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering and his biography first appeared in Who's Who in America. In 1996, he and Lois retired to Blacksburg, Virginia where they had many friends. In 2006 they moved to Warm Hearth Village, a retirement community in Blacksburg where he took up non-technical writing as a hobby and joined their writers' group. In 1998 they became snow birds, spending their winters in Fort Myers, Florida, a place he was fond of. Ralph and Lois lived together happily for 53 years until Lois' death in 2007. He is survived by his sister, Patricia Piazza of Baltimore, Maryland; daughters, Dr. Lynn D. Disney (m. Rolf K. Taylor) of Annandale, Virginia and Ms. Carrie M. Disney (m. Mark R. Stangl) of Ann Arbor, Michigan; one granddaughter, Tiffany D. Miatech; five grandsons, Maxwell A. Miller, Patrick T. Miller, Spencer K. Miller, John ("Jack") E. Sivinski, Keith J. Sivinski and one great-granddaughter, Lilliana A. Miller. His son, Edward Charles Disney was murdered in Blacksburg, Virginia in 1979. No services are planned. Disney has asked that in lieu of flowers donations go to the Johns Hopkins University, Whiting School of Engineering, Rob Roy Fund. In honor of a man who converted a kid into a scholar. Phone: 410-516-8723 or for Online giving: https://secure.jhu.edu/form/eng Please specify: Rob Roy Fund.