Who's the top dog in your field?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Well, I’ve heard of him.

In Australia, one of the best known GI actuaries, and considered a leader academically in the field, would be Dr Greg Taylor.

22

I guess that it would be Chris Mack, maybe someone else.

23

In terms of skill?
House

24

Florence Nightingale? Not living…

There aren’t a whole lot of famous living nurses. Maybe later in may career I’ll have an answer for this. I’m not specialized enough to pick out one person.

25

[Clyde Baker](Clyde Baker) (pdf!) probably. I’d have to think a bit more about geotechnical engineering in general, but he’s the top foundation engineer I would say.

26

http://content.asce.org/handa/2008_OPAL_Design_Winner.html

Whoops. Here’s an actual link.

27

Jason Bourne

28

Stephen King, overall. Though JK Rowling if we’re going by nothing but money.

But since it’s so subjective, it’s not really possible to judge.

29

Bah…I totally missed the “living person” qualifier.

30

For my current career in retail, the top dog is undoubtedly Lee Scott, current CEO of Wal-Mart, though I highly doubt he’ll go down in the annals of American retail fame the way Sam Walton, James Cash Penney, Sebastian Kresge, Richard Sears, Jeff Bezos and Charles Lazarus have.

31

I hate to use this expression, but…

I think you win the thread. Your answer is not only not obvious (the way a physicist might answer Einstein or Newton) but upon consideration of the terms of the OP and your field, the best answer one might ask for.

In recognition of your answer, I am directly the flying monkeys to spare you from the worst of the flaming-poo bombardment when the time comes.

32

I can never tell when you’re kidding, Oak. Anyway, I concede that I didn’t include “non-fictional” person in the OP; I suppose I thought placing the thread in IMHO implied it.

33

Bruce Campbell, hands down.

34

As a lowly techie in the marine and aircraft transportation industry with considerable experience in high tech composites I’d say Burt Rutan is on the top of the heirarchy.

35

Abraham Maslow
Ken Wilber
Bill Plotkin

36

William Labov

37

For Oracle database programming, either Steven Feuerstein or Tom Kyte.

38

Unfortunately, David Ogilvy and Leo Burnett are both dead. After them, I can’t really think of anyone in advertising that I’d aspire to become, although there are plenty who consider themselves the ideal that everyone else should aspire to.

39

I teach Taekwondo. There are many notable individuals in the martial arts, but the one that has influenced me the most was the late Grand Master H. U. Lee.

40

Mathematical Logic.

Saharon Shelah has published over 900 (original research) papers and several books. Much of his work is foundational (He invented both proper forcing and PCF theory.) Here is an archive of his first 912 papers.