Steve, Cathy, and Nicholas -- What have I been up to over the last three decades? (created 2010-01-26).

Since signing onto Facebook, I have been reconnecting with some old friends from my college days. They've been asking "What have I been up to?" Here's the Cliff Notes version of my life since college.

The personal news is that I am spending a lot of my time with our son, Nicholas, who we adopted at the age of 2 in 2004. He is now seven years old and in second grade. I'm trying to document on this website some of the fun things that we have done together: art projects, baking, ice skating, more art projects, roller skating, science projects, still more art projects, sledding, and swimming.

Going back further (some of these folks I have not talked to in many decades), I've been married twice. My first wife, Deanna Wild, died in 1999. I still miss her. She was also a statistician (we met in grad school), and was a voracious reader and an avid cat lover. I still try to stay in touch with her siblings, Warren, Jerry, and Pat Godfrey, and their spouses (Andrea, Mary Bishop, and Scott). My mother, father, and sister have all died (1996, 2001, and 2006), but my two brothers, Bernie and Charlie, and a niece, Joyce, are still around.

I got remarried to Catherine Ong (now Catherine Simon) in 2002. Cathy is a Pediatric Cardiologist at Childrens Mercy Hospital. She loves to travel and is a whiz at solving even the hardest New York Times crossword puzzles. Pen not pencil, of course. Ours was a blended family, since Cathy brought a dog (Shauna) and I brought a cat (Newton) into the marriage. Both pets are gone now, but for all the things they say about cats and dogs, Newton and Shauna were best friends. For a while, Nicholas had a pet fish, Prickles, but Prickles is gone also.

Professionally, I've had four good jobs since getting a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Iowa. Each job has been fun and I've liked each job more than the previous one. I started out in academia, teaching Business Statistics at Bowling Green State University. In 1987, I switched to a government job, working at some of the research labs in Cincinnati in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. After Newt Gingrich in a fit of spite shut down the government in 1996, I switched to the private sector, working in the Department of Medical Research at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. In 2008, I became my own boss. I am now an independent statistical consultant, working for a variety of clients both locally and nationally.

One of the best perks of working in research is that you see your name in print a lot. I am an author or co-author on over 70 publications in a wide range of peer-reviewed literature. At least four of these papers have won major awards. In 2006, I published a book through Oxford University Press, Statistical Evidence in Medical Trials. What Do the Data Really Tell Us. Sadly, this has not sold as well as those Harry Potter books. While at Children's Mercy Hospital, I set up a website about Statistics, Research Methodology, and Evidence Based Medicine called StATS--Steve's Attempt to Teach Statistics. It was just a page here and there when things were quiet, but after ten years, there were more than a thousand pages! I can't touch this site anymore to update or correct things, but the material has aged very well. Anything that I write now for the web is placed on my new website, www.pmean.com. I've created a free newsletter, The Monthly Mean, and offer free seminars on the web about statistics. Both are intended to build up good will and increase publicity about my consulting business. As mentioned above, I just set up a Facebook account.

I've seen more than my share of funerals, but beyond that it has been a wonderful time. If you are reacquainting yourself after a gap of some time, I hope this summary helps. Drop me a line and tell me what's been happening in your personal and professional life.

What now?

Go to Steve, Cathy, and Nicholas -- Main page

Go to Steve's professional website

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This page was written by Steve Simon and was last modified on 2017-06-15.