Michael John Bird passed away this morning.

     I met Mike Bird in 1991 April when I started working in the Operations Research Department at Northwest Airlines in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was hired as a math-algorithm-computer-algorithms guy and Mike was part of a yield-management software-support group. (Newspeakers call it "revenue management" (RM) while we old-timers still say "yield management" (YM). In the airline world it's the mathematical science of determining which seats to sell at which prices.) These computer systems were a mix of IBM-370-mainframe systems with algorithms written in SAS-analytics and IMS databases. My own computer programs ran on IBM RS6000 computers running AIX and X-windows, completely different systems. It's all a bunch of alphabet-soup systems. (My joke is that these are all TLAs where TLA stands for Three Letter Abbreviation.)

     The cool part of working with Mike was that any system I had to work with, SAS, IMS, JCL, ISPF, et cetera, Mike knew it, not only able to answer questions but able to write programs in it. His programs ran for years without breaking. I'm used to software systems not working because new cases stretched the assumptions limits, but Mike's software didn't have that problem. He also helped me with the different IBM-370 modes and interfaces. When I used these systems in nonstandard ways, Mike was there to help me figure out how to make it all work.

     While Mike was a gifted geek, he also recognized talent and knowledge in others, especially me. I didn't have to play games and pretend, he realized I was as good at what I did as he was at what he did, an atmosphere of mutual and serious respect. We challenged each other in work and in fun.

     Mike and I shared a love of science-fiction books and movies, especially Stanley Kubrick's immortal and profound "2001: A Space Odyssey." He met Arthur C. Clarke at one sci-fi event and I met Isaac Asimov at another and we took joy in sharing the details. Mike was literate and thoughtful, joy in conversation well into some very late nights.

     Mike was accomplished in family and friendship as a good husband to his wife Helen for forty-two years, a good son to his parents, a good father to his daughter Antonia and his son George, and a good friend to a lot of people. Mike's family has been my family for a long time. Helen and I became close in 1991 and that never changed. Two-year-old daughter Antonia and then-infant son George have stayed close to me for the last thirty-five years. Mike's parents and his brother knew me and liked me. So did many of the Bird-family friends. I was part of a community in the Bird home and in their social and professional universe. The Bird family also attended several of my picnic parties at my home in Afton, Minnesota, and played Bocce Ball on my large, flat lawn.

     In the professional world it seemed everybody knew Mike Bird. When he said he knew President Clinton, well, we worked for an airline, it wasn't hard to fly to Washington, D.C., first class of course (FCOC), and, sure enough, the president knew Mike well. Well he doesn't know Queen Elizabeth, we took flights through Detroit to London-Heathrow and the tube to Buckingham Palace and, sure enough, the queen and Mike were soon sharing tea. Well he's not going to know the Pope, we took flights through Amsterdam to Rome-Fiumicino Airport and a taxi to Vatican City. There was a group of people waiting to hear from the Pope, Mike told me to wait down there, and, sure enough, he walked out onto the balcony with the Pope. When the two of them rushed down to see why I fainted, I said, "After the president and queen I can see the Pope knowing him, but when the nun next to me asked me who was the guy in the funny hat next to Mike Bird, well, I guess that was too much for me." (I told this joke when we worked together, so I figure I can share it now.)

     I have pointed out that I have been a lucky person. I don't know if I'm the luckiest person ever to draw breath, but there are so many things in my life where I was just plain lucky. There are wonderful people in my life that were part of institutions and opportunities I earned, top college and graduate school and then Bell Telephone Laboratories where I met seriously brilliant people and got to work on wonderfully innovative projects as a result of my earlier efforts and accomplishments. I was still outrageously fortunate but at least I did something positive to earn these opportunities.

     But here's the thing about my friendship with Mike. It's pure luck that we happened to meet. Nothing I did in high school, college, graduate school, or Bell earned my friendship with Mike. It was just plain incredibly-good fortune that Mike's and my paths crossed, that I had such a wonderful friend for three and a half decades, and that I still have the Bird family in my life forever and always.

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