William Richard King

William Richard King, the thirty-sixth President of The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS), is a retired American university professor who studied and researched management science and information systems at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. He was the Founding President of the Association for Information Systems, co-founder of the International Conference on Information Systems, and the founder of the America's Conference on Information Systems. He has an h-index of 77 when including all of the fields in which he has published according to Google Scholar. Biography William R. King was born on December 24, 1938, in Southwestern Pennsylvania to Dewey Clark and Cambria Edith (Jones) King. He grew up in a small town called Elrama in Southwestern Pennsylvania. He described himself as a "township kid" at the time he went to Clairton High School. In high school, he was chosen to speak for his class of 450 at the graduation ceremony. In a memoir which was written in September 2011, he recalled a story that happened in tenth grade and he thought his life changed at Clairton High School. King received his bachelor's degree (with honors) at Pennsylvania State University in 1960. In college, he was in the Air Force ROTC and was named "Outstanding Cadet" in his junior year and "Distinguished Military Graduate" on graduation. After graduation, he worked as an industrial engineer for Pittsburgh Steel Company. Then he enrolled in graduate school and received his master's degree at Case Institute of Technology in 1962, and Ph.D. in Operations Research at Case Institute of Technology in 1964. Professor Russell L. Ackoff was his advisor. King shaped his professional goals with the help of Professor Russell L. Ackoff and he transferred from a jet pilot to a scholar and consultant. After getting his Ph.D., King was appointed Assistant Professor of Operations Research at Case and served from 1964 to 1965, a very unusual thing for a graduate to be so appointed. From 1965 to 1967, he served as a First Lieutenant in the US Air Force. He was an Assistant Professor of Statistics and Operations Research at the Air Force Institute of Technology.