Bechhofer-Gupta-Sobel Memorial Symposium on
Ranking and Selection and Multiple Comparison Procedures Methodologies
In recent years, the three giants to whom much of the foundations of Statistical Ranking and Selection Procedures owe their origins, and who developed the field both by personal research efforts, by interesting other researchers and practitioners in the field, and by introducing graduate students to the field, have passed from the scene, and are sorely missed.  Robert E. Bechhofer, Shanti S. Gupta, and Milton Sobel are no longer with us.
           The origins of Statistical Ranking and Selection Procedures are traced to the seminal 1954 paper by Robert E. Bechhofer in the ANNALS OF MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS (now the ANNALS OF STATISTICS), which publication will have its 50^th anniversary in 2004.  What began as an alternative to the traditional analysis of variance was developed further with the Subset Selection approach of Shanti S. Gupta, and with the collaboration of Milton Sobel, to become the Ranking and Selection (RSM) group of methodologies we know today, and which continue to develop. 
            There have been conferences devoted to RSM and related procedures, the first being IPASRAS I (Inference Procedures Associated with Statistical Ranking and Selection) held in 1982 at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu.  Others have included the "Statistical Ranking and Selection—Three Decades of Development" conference at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1984, IPASRAS II at the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1987, the Symposium on Biostatistics Honoring Charles Dunnett held at McMaster University which led to the 1993 book "Multiple Comparisons, Selection, and Applications in Biometry", as well as other symposia at various international meetings.  It seems only fitting that the 50^th anniversary be marked by a conference integrating the past and motivating the future.