Personal Page of Gene Lieb

Custom Decision Support, LLC 708 Almond Dr. Watsonville, CA 95076 Tel:(484) 678-8302 e-mail: genelieb@lieb.com

The web is a personal medium. As such, it is a little overwhelming to try to describe myself in the first person. I guess the best description is that I have endeavored to be a person of my era. I'm driven by the "quest to know" and to be of assistance. I've been involved with the practice of technical and marketing research, management, systems development strategic planning and analysis for over 35 years. As my wife, Virginia, has observed, give me interesting data to analyze, and I'm a "pig in mud." Consulting and data analyses are my profession and teaching graduate students and doing research is my avocation. I have been on the adjunct faculty of business administration at West Chester University, the University of Delaware, Villanova University and the faculties of marketing, business management and computer science and technology at Drexel University. After teaching over 80 courses mainly on the graduate level, I still consider it my major hobby.

I was born just before the end of the Second World War, which puts me at the beginning of the baby boomers. Brought up in New York City; escaped to college at the University of Delaware; but never really lost my New York accent. It was interesting that some 30 years later my stepson, Tommy, not only went to Delaware by was in the same dormitory as I had been. I have always been intrigued with mathematics, technology, and analysis. As such, I studied Chemical Engineering, graduating from Delaware with a BChE. A master's and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester followed. Being a graduate student in the 1970's was, to say the least, interesting. It came home to me a few years ago, when my stepdaughter, Wendi, showed up in a VW bus with "Grateful Dead" stickers and psychedelic curtains on the windows. "I've been here before."

While engineering was my main fascination, I have always been interested in a large range of subjects, including economics, commerce and social sciences. The University of Rochester allowed me to explore a wide range of areas by sponsoring me for an MBA. This background and later industrial experience merged to give me understanding of marketing research, statistical analysis and technology with business expertise. I have worked for Eastman Kodak Company, E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Company, Inc. and the PQ Corporation. I am grateful to Eastman for providing a superb technical experience and to Dupont for giving me an advanced post-graduate business education. At Dupont, I transitioned from technical to business research by working in their corporate marketing research group. Dupont and The PQ Corporation also helped me start my own consulting practice (Custom Decision Support, Inc.)

My technical work has included polymer fluid mechanics, continuous crystallization, filtration, photo-systems, and industrial fibers and composites. My current research interests include market and industry modeling, measuring customer motivations and behavior, technology and market forecasting, and the management of technology and commerce.

A list of selected papers and major research presentations by Gene Lieb