Donald B. Owen’s Contributions to the Statistics of Quality

Abstract

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Donald B. Owen. The editors and the publisher believe that it is especially appropriate to honor Don with this collection. He made many contributions to statistical theory and methodology. Many of these are at the foundation of quality control. Furthermore, Don’s research during his final years addressed the modem topics of process capability indices in quality improvement. The various topics in the quality area are clearly important ones. Don Owen’s work made a significant impact on them. Moreover, he loved this series of books. Donald B. Owen was born January 24, 1922. Don was raised in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, where he attended the University of Washing­ ton, earning a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematics and in 1951 a Ph.D. in Mathe­ matical Statistics. It was there that he met Ellen. They married in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1952. Their daughter, Mary Ellen, was born in Lafayette, Indiana, while Don was Assistant Professor at Purdue University. For ten years Don worked at Sandia in Albuquerque. While there he wrote several of his early papers on bivariate normality computations and sampling inspections, as well as publishing his classic Handbook o f Statistical Tables. His sons David and Matthew were born during these years in New Mexico. In 1964 the Owen family moved to Dallas, Texas, where their youngest son Mark was born. For two years Don was on the staff of the Graduate Re­ search Center of the Southwest, which has since become the University of Texas at Dallas. He then joined the Department of Statistics at Southern Methodist