Russell Research is sad to announce the passing of a great friend and true research professional, William (Bill) Kirk.  Bill was a valued member of the Russell Research family for nearly 60 years.

Born in Grove City, PA. Bill spent much of his childhood growing up in Tallahassee, FL. He traveled north for high school where he graduated from Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH, returning south to earn his bachelor’s degree from Emory University, in Atlanta, GA.

From the beginning, market research seemed to be Bill’s calling.  He started his career as a Coder at Russell Research in 1961.  Over the next 15 years, he worked for several other market research firms before starting his own data tabulation company, Macrotab Systems, Inc., in 1976.  Russell Research was fortunate to welcome Bill back into the company in 2002 as Vice President of Operations. In this role, he oversaw the Programming, Coding and Tabulation departments and was responsible for developing many of the statistical and tabulation tools that we still employ today.

While Bill’s commitment to his work was undeniable, he loved spending time with his wife, JoAnn, and daughter, Diane.  We have had the pleasure of working with both JoAnn and Diane over the years. JoAnn continues to be a critical member of Russell’s Tabulation department, as she has been for the last 19 years.

Bill was well known among his colleagues for his quick wit, passion for data and statistics, and willingness to drop everything (regardless of the hour) to help us figure out an issue that we previously thought could not be solved. He will be greatly missed.