Jay W. Forrester

Brief Biography

Born and raised on a cattle ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills, Jay Wright Forrester developed an early interest in designing electrical systems. As a senior in high school, he built a twelve volt, wind-driven electric plant that provided electricity to his family’s homestead. Forrester received a scholarship to attend agricultural college but instead followed his passion and enrolled in engineering at the University of Nebraska. He was introduced to the behavior of systems through the study of theoretical dynamics in electrical engineering.

Forrester went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after receiving a bachelors degree. He accepted a paid research assistantship with Gordon S. Brown at the Servomechanism Laboratory. During the Second World War, Brown and Forrester developed servomechisms for controlling radar antennas and gun mounts. In this experience, Forrester saw how research and theory can relate to practical uses.

After the War, Forrester was the director of the MIT Digital Computer Laboratory until 1951. He was responsible for the design and construction of Whirlwind I, one of the first high speed computers. In his computing work, Forrester invented random-access, coincident-current magnetic memory that served as the standard memory device for digital computers for many years. He headed the Digital Computer Division of MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. By 1956, however, Forrester felt as if the pioneering days in digital computers were over and moved to management studies.

MIT’s Sloan School of Management was founded upon the expectation that a management school in a technical environment would develop a more distinct culture than one in a liberal arts setting such as Harvard or Chicago. It was in this environment where Forrester launched the idea of system dynamics. Unlike traditional management research and other social sciences, system dynamics developed through intimate contact with real world application. Forrester’s early work was inspired by a series of discussions with General Electric personnel. He first published the philosophy and methodology of the subject in Industrial Dynamics (1961). Eight years later his third book, Urban Dynamics (1969), made waves as it presented a theory of urban interactions and identified reasons for the failures of past policies.

In 1970, Forrester began work with the Club of Rome, a global think tank designed as a “global catalyst for change through the identification and analysis of crucial problems facing humanity.” At the Club of Rome, Forrester developed a model capturing feedbacks among population, natural resources, pollution, agricultural and industrial production, capital investment, and quality of life. His book on the subject, World Dynamics (1971), posed important questions about the relationship between growth and the quality of life.

As systems dynamics began to solidify in the late 1970s, Forrester was on the forefront of organizing the field. He served as first president of the System Dynamics Society in 1983 and focused on enhancing the education of the subject. He retired in from MIT 1989 but has since received a number of accolades for his life’s work. That year, President George H. W. Bush awarded him the National Medal of Technology. In 2006, Forrester was elected into the International Federation of Operational Research Societies’ Operational Research Hall of Fame. 

Other Biographies

Profiles in Operations Research: Jay W. Forrester
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Wikipedia Entry for Jay Wright Forrester

Creative Learning Exchange. System Dynamics Documents: Jay W. Forrester Bio. Accessed April 23. 2015. (link) 

PBS A Science Odyssey. People and Discoveries: Jay Forrester, 1918 - . Accessed April 23, 2015. (link) 

Lane D. C. (2006) IFORS' Operational Research Hall of Fame: Jay Wright Forrester. International Transactions in Operational Research, 13: 483-492. (link)

Jay W. Forrester (1985) Oral History Interview.  Collection MC629,  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Preliminary Inventory to the Oral History Interview with Jay Wright Forrester, 1985 MC.0629

Jay W. Forrester (1998) Interview by David Allison. March 24. Transcript. Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History: Washington, D. C.

Jay W. Forrester (1998) Interview by David Allison

Jay W. Forrester (2009) Interview by Toby A. Smith. January 26. Part 1. Video. The MIT 150 Infinite Oral History Project. (video)

Jay W. Forrester (2009) Interview by Toby A. Smith. March 26. Part 2. Video. The MIT 150 Infinite Oral History Project. (video)