Acknowledgments

I am eternally grateful to Jennifer Skoog and Norm Tonina, who had faith in me and first hired me to teach Excel classes for Microsoft finance. Jennifer in particular was instrumental in helping design the content and style of the classes on which the book is based. Keith Lange of Eli Lilly, Pat Keating and Doug Hoppe of Cisco Systems, and Dennis Fuller of the U.S. Army also helped me refine my thoughts on teaching data analysis and modeling with Excel. The capable people at OTSI, reviewer Jason Lee, and Microsoft Press Editor Kathleen Atkins helped shepherd the project to completion.

I am grateful to my many students at the organizations where I’ve taught and at the Kelley School of Business. Many of them have taught me things I did not know about Excel.

Alex Blanton of Microsoft Press championed the project and shared my vision of developing a user-friendly text designed for use by business analysts.

Finally, my lovely and talented wife Vivian and my wonderful children Jennifer and Gregory put up with my long weekend hours at the keyboard.