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Biographical statement for Raymond G. Taylor
Dr. Raymond G. Taylor has had a long career as a “professional student,” teacher, and pastor. As a student, his acquisition of formal learning has spanned six decades and has lead to seven university degrees and numerous honors. As a teacher, he has taught in public and private secondary schools, in a small college, and as a full professor for 16 years in a major American university. For nine years he was Superintendent of Schools in Maine, which followed an equal number of years in other school administrative roles.
His academic interests appear to be schizophrenic – divided between the study of systematic theology and statistics. He holds an earned doctorate in each of these fields. Once when interviewed about this unusual pairing, he remarked that theology and mathematics were not as different as one might suppose. “In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there is a paradoxical tension between God as intimate and God as transcendent. The same is true for mathematics – immediate and relevant on the one hand, and wonderfully abstract on the other.”
By the time Raymond became a public school superintendent (1977-86), he had started to study and write about the applications of operations research to public school administration. Over the years that followed, this work became more formalized leading to the authorship of books and many scientific articles on the subject. In 1989, he gave up the department chairmanship in Educational Administration at NC State University to found OR/Ed Laboratories. From 1989 to 1999, under his leadership, the Lab grew both in its outreach and influence. In 1998-99 Raymond and one of his clients were honored by the International Forum for Operations Research and Management Science – the largest organization in the world serving OR – by the granting of the Edelman Award. In 2007 this was followed by the awarding of the Edelman Laureate. Nearing retirement, Raymond ceded the technology of the Lab to NC State University on January 1, 2000 – a decision he has never regretted, because the Lab has thrived under its new sponsorship.
Now retired and dividing his time between Maine and Southern Spain, Raymond is busy teaching on-line, consulting, and serving the Episcopal Church. He values highly his continuing and warm relationship with the leaders of the laboratory he helped found.
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