Personal Profile: Edward Halteman

Edward Halteman is an expert in statistical analysis and survey design. Ed has a PhD in statistics yet has a down-to-earth approach that is both practical and easy to understand. Ed's current focus is on survey design and analysis but he is always available to help those in need of expert statistical analysis.

Ed took his first survey methods course in 1978. He has been designing and analyzing surveys ever since. Through research in graduate school and 20 years in industry, Ed has designed and analyzed surveys across a wide variety of disciplines including social science, manufacturing, quality, sales and marketing, opinion research, sociology, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and more.

Ed has worked with companies large and small, applying his survey skills to solve business problems. He has worked with chemists, physicists, engineers, manufacturing personnel and management. While with Rockwell International, he developed critical sampling plans for plant security, health safety and waste management. Ed also developed and taught a 56-hour course on "Process Improvement and Statistics" for engineers, which included instruction on survey design and analysis.

Ed worked in the Corporate Quality and Marketing departments at StorageTek Inc. (a company with 10,000 employees worldwide which was purchased by Sun Microsystems in 2005) over a thirteen year span, becoming the company-wide resource for survey support. He designed surveys in nearly every department of the company including: manufacturing, human resources, events planning, travel, engineering, sales and marketing, finance, project management, internal audit and quality assurance. During that time Ed was responsible for the company’s global customer and employee satisfaction surveys. In 1994 Ed co-authored a pamphlet on doing surveys, entitled "Surveys Made Easy (And Done Right!)".

Starting in 1998, Ed revolutionized the use of data for decision-making at StorageTek by researching and introducing the use of web-based surveys. In conjunction with the ability to conduct web-based surveys, Ed and a colleague pioneered the concept of a "customer panel" - a group of customers who routinely provide feedback to aid company decision-making. Ed applied the same concept two years later to StorageTek's sales and service organization as a way to build a global community of field employees. Surveys using this "Field Panel" had response rates of up to 85%. Since that time, Ed has designed and analyzed more than 200 web-based surveys.

In 2003, Ed started Survey Design and Analysis and remains its principal resource for survey design and analysis expertise. However, Ed’s expertise extends beyond surveys and sampling. He is also an educator and an author. Ed has taught classes on understanding measurement, data analysis and statistical process control. He is a published author in statistical journals, and is the author of numerous conference papers.

Ed has a master's degree in applied mathematics, and a Ph.D. in statistics.