George and I meet at a conference at UCLA in 2000 where we were introduced by my dear friend Konstantin Oskolkov. The conversation was over beer and at some point George mentioned that LSU where he was doing his graduate studies after coming from Odessa, Ukraine does not have the type of harmonic analysis he is interested in. Oskolkov immediately suggested to George that he transfer to the University of Missouri and within a couple of weeks George applied, got an acceptance and agreed to come to Missouri to work with me. Yurii Latushkin, who was the graduate director at the University of Missouri played a very important role in making this happen.

George wrote a very strong Ph.D. dissertation, but in the middle of his studies he started thinking about working in industry. Eventually George approached me about this and I believe he was pleasantly surprised when I was very receptive to this idea and offered to help in any way I can. Eventually this led to the conversation between George and my brother Sam who hired him to work in retail analytics. A few years later, they started Prognos Inc with Yogesh Kulkarni, and they have been working together even since. 

George is a close family friend. We frequently visit each other whenever an opportunity arises.