We often hear that mathematics is found everywhere. In a certain sense that is true. There is a need, however, to say that one finds mathematics where one does because someone has put it there. And I believe there is a need to emphasize that mathematics is where someone has put it, in contrast to where one finds it. A successful career in industry depends more on where one puts mathematics than it does on where one finds or observes it.

I have worked as an aerospace scientist with NASA, Remington Rand Univac, and General Electric. I have worked as a medical research statistician with the Mayo Clinic. For most of my professional career, I have been a professor, teaching mathematics, statistics, or computer science. Too often, especially in my industrial employments, I have observed (occasionally frustrated) colleagues waiting to be given mathematics in the form of a well posed problem that will be their work rather than formulating problems that need to be solved and then, themselves, putting mathematics into their work.

I have had the enjoyment and good fortune of creating various mathematical models that have provided explanations and solutions to some important real world problems. Carefully articulating a problem is the most critical aspect in resolving real world problems. Fitting an appropriate model, as vital and as creative an act as that is, is subsequent to deeply understanding what the problem truly entails.