Hansen, Morris H. (Morris Howard), 1910-1990

Morris Howard Hansen was born in December 15, 1910, in Thermopolis, Wyoming, a son of Hans C. and Maud E. Hansen. He married Mildred R. Latham in 1930, and she died in 1983. He married Eleanore Lamb in 1986. In 1934, received a BS in accounting from the University of Wyoming and, in 1940, earned a MA in statistics from American University. In 1935, he joined the Bureau of the Census, becoming statistical director in the mid-1940's. In 1937 he worked on a national voluntary census of the unemployed and partially unemployed, which later became the monthly Current Population Survey. He also worked to develop the sample to be used within the 1940 decennial census of population. During his tenure as statistical director, the Bureau first used optical scanning equipment to compile and measure statistical data. He was instrumental in bringing to the Bureau in 1951, Univac I, the first electronic statistical computer. He was also instrumental in developing FOSDIC--Film Optical Sensing Device for Input to Computers--invented and produced by the joint effort of the staff of the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Standards, and used to process the 1960 through 1990 censuses. He was also influential in the development of sample survey techniques and co-authored "Sample Survey Methods and Theory" in 1953. He retired from the Bureau in 1968 as Associate Director for Research and Development, and was appointed senior vice-president of Westat. At Westat he had a lead role in the design of many important national surveys carried out by U.S. government agencies and by Westat, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In 1962, he received a public service award from the Rockefeller Foundation. He was a founder and first president of the International Association of Survey Statisticians, serving from 1973 to 1977, and was elected to National Academy of Sciences in 1976. He died October 19, 1990, at Washington, D.C.