I first acknowledge those who made this book possible. I am deeply grateful to Dave McComb for providing an opportunity to build so many ontologies in such a wide variety of industries; and for the many insightful ideas he has shared over the years. My views as an ontologist have been greatly influenced by him. Dave also gave insightful feedback on a later draft of this book.
My parents’ greatest gift was to encourage me and my eight siblings to pursue our own dreams, not theirs. A special thanks to Professor Richard Uschold (my Dad) who shared with me his unique gift for explaining complex technical ideas. Alan Bundy helped me through some tough times in graduate school and taught me how to organize a major writing project.
I have Ying Ding to thank for asking me a couple years ago: “Have you ever thought about writing a book?” I thank Larry Raymore for planting a seed that got me started. I’m grateful to Michael Morgan who agreed to publish this book and has been a pleasure to work with.
My views on OWL itself and how it is most effectively taught have been influenced by the numerous ontologists and modelers that I have worked with over the years. These include Semantic Arts colleagues: Andi Engelstad,4 Dan Carey, Dave McComb, Mark Ouska, Mark Wallace, Simon Robe, and Ted Hills. It also includes ontologists authoring the Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO). These include David Newman, Dean Allemang, Elisa Kendall, Mike Bennet, and Pete Rivett. FIBO was also a source of some of the examples I used in this book. Thanks to Simon Robe also for permission to use his visual OWL syntax.
My hero reviewers were Dalia Varanka and Mark Ouska who read every word, sometimes more than once, and turned around drafts in record time. In addition, I received a lot of useful feedback on different chapters from Andrea Engelstad, Andrea Zachary, Bobbin Teegarden, Dave Plummer, Matt Johnson, and Pete Rivett. Andrea Zachary made a major contribution to the index.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to my wife, Mary VonRanker, for listening to and supporting me in countless ways, both emotionally and practically. She has been a very effective listener and sounding board for ideas about the book.
4 All lists of names are in alphabetical order.