Professor RNDr. Ing. Lubomír Kubáček, DrSc., Dr. h. c.

A phenomenon in Slovak and Czech statistical community, our teacher, colleague, and good friend, Professor Lubomír Kubáček has turned eighty this year - full of energy, vitality, and enthusiasm. With great joy and pleasure we join him in celebrating this occasion.

Professor Kubáček was born on February 1, 1931, in Bratislava. After graduating from high school he continued with his studies at the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. He graduated summa cum laude majoring in geodesy in 1954.

As a fresh graduate, he immediately took on responsibilities. For eight long years he was the head of the Computing Department of the Geodetic Institute in Bratislava. This environment, full of numbers and high demand for extremely precise calculations, turned out to be very motivating. Luboš, as we all call him, became convinced that mathematics, particularly numerical methods and statistics, was essential for further progress of his professional understanding. He decided to go on and continue with his education at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, as a part-time student. He successfully graduated, first in 1957 majoring in Mathematical Analysis and later, in 1964 majoring in Probability and Mathematical Statistics, both summa cum laude.

The change point in Luboš 's career was when he joined the Institute of Theory of Measurement of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. There he managed, within a short period of time, to gather a group of young probabilists and statisticians and create the basis of the Department of Theoretical Methods.

Especially memorable are the regular seminars held every other Wednesday morning, each lasting about four hours. The collegial, open atmosphere and fruitful, sometimes heated, professional discussions were extremely attractive for statisticians - not only in Bratislava, for some did not hesitate to travel regularly from distant cities, such as Žilina and Brno, in order to be part of the group. It was then that the so-called "Kubáček's Linear Models School" was established. Many currently successful Slovak mathematicians and statisticians, active at home academic institutions but also abroad, started their professional career under the leadership of Professor Kubáček, and their professional interests were formed at those seminars.  

The political atmosphere in the country during the late seventies and early eighties influenced every aspect of life. Changes took place also at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In 1981 Luboš moved to the Mathematical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and during the years 1988-91 he served as its director. Even during that time he didn't slow down in his research activities or in collaboration with colleagues and particularly with students. 

During Luboš's entire professional career he remained connected to geodesy. In his papers and numerous monographs, Luboš continues to address nontrivial, often very difficult problems and questions related to regression models. The questions he tries to answer are always very closely related to and motivated by practical real life problems. His work in that area led to national and international recognition. For example, his work is seminal in developing the statistical theory of geodetic networks.

Luboš's faithful and closest collaborator during his professional career until her death was his sweetheart, his wonderful wife Liduška. Together they managed to solve numerous statistical problems in geophysics.

However, Luboš's professional interest has not been limited only to technical applications. For over twenty years he had a long-standing collaboration on statistical applications in medicine and biomedicine with the 1st Clinic of Internal Medicine in Bratislava. Those most productive years led to Luboš's habilitation, and in 1981 he was awarded the scientific title Doctor of Science and soon after that, in 1991, the academic title Professor.

In 1994, shortly after Czechoslovakia split, the Kubáčeks moved to the Czech Republic, to the beautiful old city of Olomouc. Since then Luboš continues in his activities - teaching, publishing, active collaboration with young colleagues - at the Faculty of Science of Palacky University, Olomouc. And once again he created it - he managed again to build up, practically from scratch, a group of young, enthusiastic statisticians as part of the division of applied mathematics. 

In addition to research, teaching plays an essential part of Luboš's professional life. From the beginning, when he worked at the Institute of Theory of Measurement, he started to teach and offered numerous graduate courses at the Department of Probability and Statistics of the Comenius University in Bratislava. His lectures on Theory of Estimation are especially memorable. He has been and still is very active in supervising graduate students and young statisticians. There is no limit to his patience and willingness to help. If needed, he is ready even nowadays, as he was hundreds of times before, to sit with a student for hours and go through proofs in detail just in order to help. He managed to successfully supervise at least 15 Ph.D. students (Candidate of Sciences in former times) and at present he still supervises two graduate students, young adepts of mathematical sciences. 

Regarding research, Luboš hasn't slowed down even at his ``mature'' age. He continues to publish not only scientific papers but also books. He is author or co-author of eleven monographs, two of which have been published by international publishing houses. He is author or co-author of six sets of lecture notes and over 176 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals. His publications can be found not only in mathematically and/or statistically oriented journals but also in journals on geodesy, chemometry, and medical research. He is a member of several editorial boards. As a recognition of his work, Professor Kubáček has been awarded a number of awards and medals.

Dear Luboš, it is our privilege to join your closest family, two sons, Jirka and Zbynek with his family, and say out loud: Many Happy Returns of the Day!

Júlia Volaufová
Chair of the Program Committee