On Alumnus Herbert Edelstein
By Karrie Sue Hawbaker, editor

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Herbert Edelstein, a Baltimore native and University of Maryland alumnus (B.S., 1966). He was kind enough to share with us his memories of his journey from Physics at Maryland to successful entrepreneurship.

Herbert Edelstein spends his days with data – market data, employee data, drug trial data, any kind of data. He examines it, analyzes it, and finds patterns in it. Then, he provides his clients with knowledge from their own databases that they never even knew existed. Sound much like a physicist? Maybe not at first. But, Edelstein still has the notebooks from many of his classes at the University of Maryland in the early 1960's, such as the mechanics class he took with Dr. Alex Dragt. And he says that, even as president and founder of a data mining consulting firm he calls Two Crows, he uses his physics education regularly.

In fact, Edelstein wanted to study physics ever since he was a student at a Baltimore elementary school. “I wanted to know how and why things worked around me,” he says. That desire bundled with an aptitude for science allowed him to attend Baltimore Polytechnic High School, the city's college preparatory high school with an emphasis on science, mathematics and engineering. Edelstein remembers the school's A-course as clearly ahead of its time and when he graduated in 1962 he felt prepared to begin his college career.

At this time, Physics at Maryland had already established a reputation for its strong undergraduate and graduate curriculums, the primary reason he chose Maryland. He also liked the fact that the Department allowed students to take a large number of electives, allowing him to explore other interests through courses from around campus.

He has fond memories of the undergraduate years he spent here. He recalls that the aforementioned Professor Dragt was his favorite teacher, despite a rough semester of mechanics with him. When the grades were posted, Edelstein tells me, he had the highest B of any of the undergraduates. He was rather pleased he had done this well, but couldn't help noticing that one more point on the homework assignments and he would have had the A. When he brought this fact to Dragt's attention, the professor responded with “If you had one more point, the line would have been higher.” Edelstein chuckles as he tells the story, revealing that he had found the blunt honesty refreshing.

After graduation in 1966, Edelstein took a job at the Illinois Institute of Technology Research's Electromagnetic Compatibility Analysis Center, located in Annapolis, Maryland . His job was to examine the interference between radio and microwave systems aboard ships. While he liked the organization and his colleagues there, after a year he realized that this was not the career for him.

“I looked around and wondered if there was anybody's job I would want to have one day. The answer was no,” says Edelstein.

So, after about a year, he left the research center to teach high school science. When he was being debriefed by the research center, he was asked how much of a raise he was getting in his new position. He was actually taking a 25 percent pay cut – a testament to the value of job satisfaction.

After a several month tour of Europe that included Norway, Denmark and Germany, where he took a class in German, Edelstein began teaching science to the students of Milford Mill High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Teaching suited him and his interest in science education grew. Therefore, after about a year, when The Johns Hopkins University offered him a fellowship to study in their Masters of Arts in Teaching program, he eagerly took the opportunity.

The M.A.T. program paired a substantive curriculum in the subject matter with education coursework, providing him with a strong foundation that came in handy when, after completing the M.A.T. program, Edelstein landed a job teaching at The Park School, a prestigious private high school in Brooklynville, near Owings Mills , Maryland . He spent several years there, enjoying the bright teenagers in his classroom as well as the practice of teaching.

Then, Edelstein again began wondering about his career direction, wondering if teaching was really what he wanted to do and intrigued by the idea of a career that would be financially – as well as professionally – rewarding.

That consideration led him to Carnegie Mellon University's Graduate School of Industrial Administration, where he earned an M.S.I.A, an educational experience that helped him gain a position as a consultant for the Arlington, Virginia-based company, American Management Systems. Edelstein has good words for AMS; he enjoyed his co-workers and his work. The majority of this work was in the area of database management systems and data warehousing, providing him with a start in the field in which he has earned entrepreneurial success. This may seem significant, but it was not nearly the most significant part of his AMS experience. After all, it was there that he met the pretty University of Pennsylvania graduate who would one day become his wife. And when she was accepted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate studies, he moved to Boston to follow her.

For the next several years, Edelstein held several interesting consulting positions from Boston to Philadelphia to Berkeley and back to Maryland again. Then, about eight years ago, with more than 20 years of experience in data warehousing and data mining, he opened his own consulting firm, Two Crows.

Edelstein named his company Two Crows after the Norse legend of Odin, king of the gods, who was advised by crows named Hugin and Munin. Each day, after flying out into the world, the two birds would report to the king what was going on, just as Two Crows, Inc. promises its customers to help them discover information in their databases.

So… a physicist, a teacher, a data miner, an entrepreneur and a Norse mythology enthusiast (who is also quite the history buff, by the way)? Actually, it's not all that unusual, according to Edelstein. It's all related to his love of understanding and explaining the world around him. And he uses that Maryland physics degree more than you would think. As he points out, "Double entry bookkeeping is a conservation process and the rules of accounting are the rules of the flows."

He calls entrepreneurship an “interesting mix of uncertainty and independence,” reminding readers that with the liberty of being your own boss comes the responsibility of bringing in work. And, even though he does think about returning to teaching someday, he very much enjoys what he does now. Besides, this way, he can enjoy professional success and have a schedule flexible enough to allow him to spend time with his 8th grade son, who excels in the classroom (he wants to be a physicist one day) as well as on the wrestling mat, where Dad is a coach.

When The Photon asks him if he has any advice for our current students, Edelstein quickly replies, “Enjoy your undergrad years while you can. You have as much freedom now as you'll ever have.”

He also reminds students that physics is more than just the equations, it's the physical reality behind the equations – and that can be really exciting. He also encourages teachers, at the high school and college levels, to remember to convey the excitement of science and the discovery that is going on in the field right now. This will grab your students' attention and help them learn.

After all, what is more exciting than finding out how the world works and why?

---

If you have questions for Mr. Edelstein, please contact the editor. She will be happy to pass your questions on to him.