This interview took place on the campus of the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Interviewer: Robert G. Sargent
Interview place: Bethesda, Maryland
Interview date: 2013-05-20
Julian Reitman has long promoted the use of simulation for solving complex problems and is one of the founders of the simulation community. His initial work in engineering was for the United States military in 1947. He joined the Teleregister Corporation as a system engineer in 1955, designing real-time computer/communications systems for airline reservations. Reitman was one of the first individuals to use IBM’s General Purpose Simulation System, commonly known as GPSS. Reitman worked for the Norden Division of United Aircraft Corporation beginning in 1961, solving numerous complex problems using GPSS. He performed research to extend the capabilities of GPSS and developed GPSS-NORDEN which contained these capabilities.
Reitman was a co-founder of (what became) the Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) in 1967 and also served on the WSC Board of Directors. He received the first Lifetime Professional Achievement Award given by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) College on Simulation in 1998. Reitman is the author of Computer Simulation Applications: Discrete Event Simulation for Synthesis and Analysis of Complex Systems, published in 1972. During his career he taught different courses on simulation both at the University of Connecticut and at Norden. Reitman was a co-founder of theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. He was also the associate editor for simulation for the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.