st: Richard Sperling

[Christopher Baum <kit.baum@bc.edu>]

<>
I am saddened to convey the news that my former coauthor, Dr Richard Sperling, has lost his fight of the last three years with lung cancer, passing away last Friday evening. Richard first contacted me over ten years ago when he was enrolled in a PhD program at Ohio State University and wanted to pick my brains on some time series topics. Our collaboration extended to the authorship of several Stata routines, notably -dfgls- in 2001, documented in STB-58, which was adopted by StataCorp and is part of official Stata. He and I also coauthored -wntstmvq-. a multivariate Q test statistic (documented in STB-60), -and hegy4-, a seasonal unit root test. Richard is the author of -dfao-, a unit root test in the presence of additive outliers, also available from SSC. 

Richard worked for the Federal Home Loan Bank in San Francisco; at the Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture; the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy; and most recently for the CNA Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. In his own words, he was an avid bicyclist and jazz listener.

Richard would have celebrated his 50th birthday this April. During his illness, he kept in touch with me and many other friends, relatives and acquaintances through a listserv. Richard asked that the following message be posted for us when the day arrived. I am sure that he would want to share these words--polite or not--with his many contacts in the Stata community. His message to us all:



Hi all, 

Thank you all so much for your love, companionship, and friendship. I apologize for leaving early, but I really didn't have much say in the matter. I trust you understand. :-) 

For those of you who are relatives or close friends of my brother, David, please support him through this difficult time and be there for him in the future. He could use a few siblings. 

I hope you all have good, happy, and, healthy lives. And try not to get stressed out by what I consider trivial things like traffic jams, the possibility of missing a flight, and the ups and downs of the stock market. Take it from someone who knows about stress. Life really is too short. Make the most of it and enjoy! 

Finally, please support intelligent and well thought out public policies that help those in society who are less fortunate than we are. The social safety net in this country is in great need of repair. 

Oh yes, I almost forgot, FUCK CANCER!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

With much love and gratitude, Richard




Rest in peace, Richard. You fought the good fight. I am proud to have been your friend.

Kit Baum




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