Combatting hate crimes to build a safer future for all

Published: May 25, 2021

At the heart of operations research, analytics, data science, and all the related fields, is the desire to improve the world around us, transforming data and information into insight and action, from simple business operations decisions to contributions that improve the quality of life, and even save lives, in communities across the globe.

And within this podcast, we strive to acknowledge and highlight the incredible contributions of INFORMS members, and their passion for tackling the most significant and complex problems facing our world today.

Joining me for this episode to discuss his work in combatting an unfortunately pervasive issue throughout U.S. history, violence directed at minority populations categorized as hate crimes, is Matthew Matlack.

Matthew, a technology sales professional based in Tulsa, OK, recently shared his insight at the Virtual 2021 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference, with his presentation, “Combatting Prejudice and Discrimination: Regression Modeling and Analysis for Hate Crimes,” and his work will again be featured in the June 2021 issue of OR/MS Today magazine, in an article titled “Educating a Bias Society: Using Hate Crime Data to Inform and Define Future Policy in the U.S.”

In addition to exploring the important insight gained and the opportunities for impact identified by his work, in this episode we’ll be discussing an upcoming event in Matthew’s hometown of Tulsa that commemorates the 100-year anniversary a tragic incident in the history of hate crimes in the U.S. that has fueled Matthew’s passion for his work.

Born in Harlem in 1924, a writer of many essays, James Baldwin was also an American novelist, playwright, poet, and activist. He has one of my favorite quotes, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Baldwin knew that change can’t happen until people collectively acknowledge there is a problem.

Interviewed this episode:

Matthew Matlack

Commscope

Matthew has translated his outstanding academic background into a successful business career. He graduated from the highly regarded Columbia University in New York City with a degree in Economics. He further enhanced his education by obtaining an MBA from the University of Tulsa. With this educational background, Matthew understands how the key business drivers of micro- and macroeconomics influence the private sector. While in New York, he showed his entrepreneurial ability as well as his management style by leading a creative team in the development of a student written Guidebook to New York. This book, which sold over 50,000 copies, was highlighted in the New York Times and Crains Business. During his 13+ years of experience in the networking and communications industry, he has created business plans and executed sales strategies that have surpassed quota attainment for 12 consecutive years and allowed him to be nationally recognized as a Top 5% sales performer. Attainment of sales goals has been largely due to his ability to build trusted relationships with colleagues, partners, and customers. During his career he has been a sales expert with Cisco Systems, Vice President of Sales at DTS Communications, and currently, Strategic Account Manager for Brocade. The diversity of the software applications is impressive: Entertainment, Healthcare, Energy, Wireless, Telecom, Gaming, Government, Airline, Financial Services, Disaster Recovery, Retail, Petroleum, Banking, and Travel. In addition, he has developed a unique expertise with complex datacenter design and architecture. In his spare time, Matthew is active in a variety of community activities.

Over a ten year period, Oklahoma/Arkansas total hardware and software sales have exceeded $50 million. Customers include Colleges, Universities, e-commerce sites, healthcare, financial, manufacturing and entertainment companies as well as Internet/ Metro service providers.