Tom Liebling asked me to give this talk. He said that I should give a talk that would appeal to our members, would motivate our official guests to support mathematical programming research, and would not bore anyone. Furthermore, I would share the podium with George Dantzig, the father of us all, as well as with our distinguished prize winners. So, I said sure.

Then, when I started to prepare the talk that would accomplish all these things, I remembered one of my favorite sayings from Mark Twain: A man is about to be ridden out of town on a rail, and he is asked if he has any last words..