Dr. Lloyd S. Nelson
Nelson Becomes ASQ's 20th Honorary Member
On Feb. 8, 2003, Dr. Lloyd S. Nelson became ASQ's 20th Honorary Member upon receiving unanimous support from the Society's board of directors. His citation reads, "For enduring contributions to the science of quality improvement as the founding editor of the Journal of Quality Technology, for dissemination of knowledge to the profession through published articles and over 25 years of Technical Aids Columns in JQT, and for his service to the Society and the profession."
Nelson retired from the Nashua Corp. in 1992. Before joining Nashua Corp., he was a consulting statistician with General Electric Lamp Division in Cleveland and then manager of Applied Mathematics Laboratory for General Electric Appliance Division in Louisville, KY.
As the editor of ASQ's Industrial Quality Control, Nelson in the 1960s proposed dividing the magazine into two publications. Eventually, he convinced the board to create the general-interest magazine Quality Progress and the more technical quarterly Journal of Quality Technology. He became the first editor of the Journal of Quality Technology.
A teacher of statistics and prolific author, Nelson is referred to in W. Edwards Deming's Out of the Crisis-specifically his observation that "the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable, but successful management must nevertheless take them into account." He preferred to be recognized as the author of the Journal of Quality Technology's "Technical Aids" feature, which he wrote for more than 20 years.
Nelson was honored in 2001 as one of the first recipients of ASQ’s Distinguished Service Medal. He was named an ASQ Fellow in 1964 and was awarded the Shewhart Medal in 1978. Nelson also served on ASQ's Awards Board and Shewhart and Deming Medal Committees, and was a long-time member of the Journal of Quality Technology's Editorial Review Board.
Nelson earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
He passed away August 28, 2013.