SAS Customer Recognition — Jim Kissler
Since 2005, Jim Kissler has been Director of Service Delivery at a large financial services firm. In this role, he supports analytic platforms, hardware and software for risk infrastructure. He also manages a group that deploys hardware to the data center, engineers and maintains the OS/middleware, explores new technologies, owns a variety of third-party relationships and supports 1,500 analytic users across the enterprise.
Kissler joined his current organization in 1981 and has held various positions of increasing responsibility over the years, first as a senior manager of technical professionals, and then as Director of International Card Marketing and Director of Information Management. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in quantitative business analysis from Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business.
How long have you been using SAS®?
Thirty-one years.
What SAS products have you used in the past, and what products and solutions are you currently using?
Nearly all Base SAS, SAS/ACCESS® and SAS/STAT® products as well as a variety of client tools, including SAS® Enterprise Guide®, SAS Data Integration Studio, SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office and SAS® Enterprise Miner™.
Tell us about a problem you've solved using SAS.
Probably the largest project was delivering continuous marketing offers across all international markets. The process was a cross-selling application that coordinated, scored and optimized card member offers across multiple product lines. Offers were optimized to deliver the highest net benefit within market-specific legal regulations and company products.
What's the most innovative way you've used SAS?
I developed a fraud MIS application that's been in production since 1995 without a single failure. The application is self-aware, recoverable and reschedules itself as required.
Share with us your most memorable SAS moment.
Seeing Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS, give a presentation on a blackjack application he wrote about 25 years ago. He was so proud of it!
How has SAS changed in the time you have been using it?
Honestly, very little. The basic language is essentially the same, except when macros were introduced in the early 1980s. From that time, a variety of capabilities and tools based off the core language have been developed, but the language is essentially the same. You can go to SAS Global Forum and see the same presentations about the language that were around decades ago. The biggest change is certainly around the metadata and the complexity of maintaining that environment.
Have you ever attended a SAS users group meeting or SAS Global Forum?
SAS Users Group International in 1984 (Hollywood Beach, FL); SUGI 10 in 1985 (Reno, NV); SUGI 14 in 1989 (San Francisco; SUGI 16 in 1991 (New Orleans); SUGI 19 in 1994 (Dallas); SUGI 20 in 1997 (Orlando, FL); SUGI 21 in 1996 (Chicago); SUGI 22 in 1997 (San Diego); SUGI 26 in 2001 (Long Beach, CA); SUGI 31 in 2006 (San Francisco); SAS Global Forum 2007 (Orlando, FL); SAS Global Forum 2008 (San Antonio); SAS Global Forum 2010 (Seattle); and SAS Global Forum 2011 (Las Vegas).
Has your work with SAS been influenced by any other members of the SAS community?
I support 1,600 SAS users today, and I've hired and trained several hundred other SAS programmers. I have also presented at multiple conferences on analytic applications and the power of SAS.
If you could point a new SAS user to one resource, what would it be?
SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. It's so powerful!
