Power Talk with Mike Zdeb
posted: February 2006Mike Zdeb, assistant professor at the University at Albany School of Public Health, has only taken one programming course in his life. But that hasn't stopped him from being a die-hard SAS user for more than 15 years.
"My first introduction to SAS came at the New York State Health Department," says Zdeb. "We received a SAS license in the late 1980s, and it was our first statistical or data management package."
Zdeb is a completely self-taught SAS user. "I have never taken a SAS course," he admits. "I was just very curious about the package, and I did an awful lot of reading."
"I came at SAS not from the perspective of a programmer, but rather like a researcher or statistician," comments Zdeb. He views his lack of a programming background as a positive thing.
"It turned out to be good for me because most of the people at the health department who used SAS were not programmers. They were more like me: epidemiologists or public health workers who needed some kind of tool to help them organize, manage, present and analyze data," says Zdeb. "Because of my curiosity and seeing how apparent it was that SAS could help both me and my co-workers, I ended up being the SAS educator for the health department."
Zdeb ended up teaching classes and writing short manuals for the health department. "It was easier for me to explain SAS concepts to my co-workers because I was just like them, not like the systems people who were better at explaining how to run SAS on our various platforms rather than at how to use it to accomplish specific tasks."
Practical experience
"Once I started learning SAS, I did everything with it," notes Zdeb. "I gave up using anything else because SAS was so intuitive."
While at the health department, Zdeb also taught part-time at the University at Albany School of Public Health. After he retired from the health department in 2003, he continued to teach as an assistant professor and has now taught SAS for the past 10 years.
He has also continued to assist staff at the health department on SAS-related projects. Zdeb recalls an early project at the school involving SAS.
"Back in the 1970s, I wrote a paper on the probabilities of developing cancer. The paper ended up in the American Journal of Epidemiology. When I originally wrote the paper, there was no SAS, and no personal computer," he notes. "I had to do everything in FORTRAN running on a mainframe. One of my master's students was working on a thesis project, so we reran the entire probability aspect of the paper using SAS. The student got a thesis paper out of it, and I was able to present the paper at a Northeast SAS Users Group (NESUG) conference."
Zdeb notes that the original graphics for the paper were all hand drawn by an artist. When the paper was redone with SAS, the images were all done automatically using SAS/GRAPH®.
Teach what you know
At the School of Public Health, Zdeb teaches an introductory three-credit SAS course. He also teaches an advanced one-credit course that takes what was taught in the introductory class and shows students how to apply their knowledge to the various problems they may encounter in the work force. His students learn macros, graphics and SQL in the advanced course. Zdeb would like to include more in the course, but "there's just not enough time to teach everything that SAS can do."
Many of Zdeb's students are physicians who have no experience using analytic software, but they are interested in being able to work with their data on their own. He encourages his students to take the SAS Certification Exam, and several of them have taken and passed the exam. You can read their stories on the Web. One student came to the school from Mongolia to get a Master's degree in public health. He attended Zdeb's classes and passed the certification exam. "My students have taken the intro course, gotten an internship and used SAS in real life. Then they take the exam and do pretty well," says Zdeb.
Zdeb also shares his SAS knowledge with people outside of the university. Many people find his Web site and then e-mail him with SAS questions or requests to use his notes. Former students also call or e-mail him with questions. "I tell my students my courses come with a lifetime warranty, and they really take me up on it."
Zdeb also receives notes and e-mails full of gratitude. "I just received a Christmas card from an ex-student saying she loves her job and that whenever she has a question, she looks first at my notes and then grabs her book," he notes.
Conference involvement
Another way Zdeb stays active in SAS is through his participation in regional and international conferences. He attended the first NESUG conference in 1988 and has been a consistent participant ever since. He is actively involved in the group and serves as the CD creator. He began putting the proceedings on CD in 1997 and has continued every year since. "I enjoy the regional conferences because it's all done by volunteers," says Zdeb. "I have been attending SUGI more and more lately. In fact, I presented papers at the past two SUGIs and will do so again at SUGI 31 in San Francisco."
In 1998, Zdeb also wrote a SAS book, Maps Made Easy Using SAS. In it, he includes abundant real-world examples and a tutorial approach to help new users create maps easily and quickly.
As a self-proclaimed SAS proselytizer, Zdeb has used and taught SAS for years...and he knows what he's talking about. His experience and knowledge make him a valuable resource, both for SAS users and SAS staff, and for that we're eternally grateful. Thanks for your use of SAS over the years, Mike!