ROCK STAR OF THE STATS DEPARTMENT

Have you ever wondered what our favorite Stat Tools guru, Professor Joe Hahn, does outside of class? Fly On The Wall did a little digging and the results are quite surprising. When he is not busy running regressions, Professor Hahn enjoys playing a mean guitar, which has led to a few wild stories.

“It all started back at UT Austin,” he explained. “Me and a couple of the other professors started a grunge band called Lower Limits. We played at homecoming and a few clubs on a regular basis, and there was talk about signing a recording contract. But then the Organizational Behavior Professor who was the lead singer decided the name was wrong and changed it to ‘Degrees of Freedom’. That killed us. It totally went against the theme of the band. I mean, what kind of grunge band has a name like that? Our fans called us sellouts, and a bunch of students dropped my class. It was a bad time.”

“After taking some time off, I started doing some solo work. Some of my own material, a bit of Clapton, and a lot of Hendrix.”

“My big break came later that year during South by Southwest. I had just finished a really intense linear programming project and developed some macros that my colleagues said couldn’t be done. I was totally stoked.”

“When I got on stage that night, I was on fire. For 30 minutes I *was* Jimi. It was wild: I’m doing Purple Haze, smashing amps, playing with my teeth, lighter fluid, the whole nine yards. Brought the house down. The crowd was screaming and students were throwing their textbooks on the stage.”

“But that wasn’t the best of it! I go back into the crowd to watch the next gig, and this guy next to me is going on and on about the guy who just did Hendrix. I look over my shoulder, and it’s my childhood idol, Ace Frehley from KISS!”

“We get to talking, and next thing I know, he’s introducing me to Gene and the rest of the band. The whole time my head is swimming, trying to calculate how many standard deviations from the norm this event outcome had to be. It blew my mind.”

“Gene was a bit distant at first. Especially when I told him Destroyer was my favorite album…I don’t know what I was thinking. I really put my foot in it. But he warmed up when I started talking about the valuation of real options. Behind the makeup he’s a very astute businessman.”

GUITAR HERO

“But that’s not the end of the story,” he added, with a grin. “About a week later Ace calls: They’re in Houston and Paul Stanley had a bad reaction to the face paint. Could I step in and cover for him tonight?”

“Quicker than you can say ‘class dismissed’ I’m on a helicopter to Houston and living the life of a rock star: trashed hotel suites, stretch limos, screaming fans…and this time they were throwing more than textbooks.”

“I wound up doing two shows. They asked me to stay on the tour, but I had to say no. I mean, I gave it some thought, but after running it through a logit model, it made more sense to stick with teaching. There were just too many variables.”

“Sure, I still think about it every now and then, but things have worked out just fine. I still play on Wednesday nights at the Malibu Inn where it’s only a $10 cover and a double happy hour from 8-10.”

Professor Hahn is available on Mondays from 12-2 to discuss problem sets or sign autographs.