GAMS is one of the leading tool providers for the optimization industry, with offices in the US and Germany. With customers in more than 120 countries, GAMS is used by multinational companies, universities, research institutions and governments in many different areas, including the energy and chemical industries, for economic modeling, agricultural planning, or manufacturing.
Started as a project at the World Bank by an economic modeling group in the 1970s, GAMS was the first software system to combine the language of mathematical algebra with traditional concepts of computer programming in order to efficiently describe and solve optimization problems. Nowadays, algebraic modeling is considered to be the most productive way of implementing optimization models and decomposition methods for optimization problems.
At GAMS we care about algebraic modeling and optimization. We want to provide the best possible optimization software to make life easy for our customers. We innovate responsibly, and guarantee long term compatibility of our products with customer model code.
GAMS became a commercial product in November 1987, when the GAMS Development Corporation was founded in Washington, D.C. by Alexander Meeraus, Richard C. Price, and Gary Kutcher. In November 1995 Alexander Meeraus and Franz Nelissen founded GAMS Software GmbH.
Our current management board consists of Dr. Michael Bussieck, Dr. Franz Nelissen, and Dr. Steven Dirkse.
Michael has a PhD in Mathematics from Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. After working at GAMS Development in Washington as a senior optimization analyst, he became a managing partner of GAMS Software GmbH in 2004. In addition to his development responsibilities, he frequently engages in customer optimization projects that deliver cutting-edge optimization technology to clients from all industries.
Franz holds a PhD in Agriculture from the University of Giessen, Germany. Franz started working for GAMS in 1995 and was appointed to GAMS' Development Board of Directors in 2010. Over the course of his career, Franz has worked with customers in government, academia and commercial markets, has consulted on optimization projects worldwide, and is responsible for business development and international project management.
Steven received his PhD in Computer Science from UW-Madison in 1994. After a year of teaching math and CS at Calvin College, he joined the staff at GAMS Development in 1995, becoming Director of Optimization in 2003 and President in 2016. His primary focus has been in software development, notably solvers and solver links, data utilities, multi-threading, and quality control and performance testing.