Morris DeGroot (now deceased) was a great statistician and gentleman of the 20th Century. Says friend and coworker Joseph B. ("Jay") Kadane of DeGroot in the Foreword. He was an institutional builder, as founder of the Statistics Department at Carnegie Mellon University and as first Executive Editor of Statistical Science. He was a wonderful colleague and friend, always ready for a chat about principles, a research problem, a departmental problem, a reference, or personal advice.

George E. P. Box, PhD, is Ronald Aylmer Fisher Professor Emeritus of Statistics and Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His lifelong work has defined statistical analysis, while his name and research is a part of some of the most influential statistical constructs, including Box & Jenkins models, Box & Cox transformations, and Box & Behnken designs. Dr. Box is the coauthor of a number of Wiley books, including most recently, Statistical Control by Monitoring and Adjustment, Second Edition; Response Surfaces, Mixtures, and Ridge Analyses, Second Edition; and Improving Almost Anything: Ideas and Essays, Revised Edition.

Norman R. Draper is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the Department of Statistics. His research interests include Experimental Design, Linear Models, and Nonlinear Estimation.

Howard Raiffa was an American academic who was the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics, a joint chair held by the Business School and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Robert Schlaifer is the author of Applied Statistical Decision Theory, published by Wiley.