I was born in a family of young Lithuanian intellectuals in Kaunas , Lithuania , in 1941, just a few months after the soviets invaded Lithuania. Comrade Stalin had decided that the best place for my family and me as a newborn to live was Siberia. My Father Juozas Baltrusis, a formerly active in Lithuanian Youth organization "Jaunoji Lietuva", learned about such plans by chance and did not sleep at home that night when soldiers came to deport us. However, my Mother Antanina Baltrusiene was captured and sent to Siberia to "enjoy" 15 years in the  polar region. On her way to the railway station in early morning of June 14^th, 1941 my Mother succeeded to cast  me, then 3  months old boy,  off  to a stranger. Thus I lost the possibility to see the North. Many years later I succeeded to do this a few times during my winter and summer vacations. My Mother, after returning to Lithuania and retiring from her high school teacher's work, published her story under the name "A Journey to Nowhere and Back". According to many readers it is one of the best narration's of this kind in Lithuania.

In order to hide from the soviet regime my Father changed his profession and his family name into Raudys and therefore up to now I carry this name. After the Soviets occupied Lithuania again in 1944, for a dozen years my Father constantly changed his place of living and  occupation until at last we settled in Panevezys, one of Lithuania's  towns. After several years my father decided to send me, then an 8^th grade student of a small secondary school in Panevezys, to another school considered the best one in the town. It was a great decision for me.

 The  main impulse which inspired me for research work were my high school teachers: a physisist Mrs. Dauksaite, and mathematicians Mrs. Jasilionis,  S. Bortkevicius and J. Janulionis. At that time our school was undoubtedly the best in Lithuania, as shown in competitions between high school students in Physics and Mathematics. The principal of the high school Mr. Jonas Janulionis used to work with me for a few hours almost every day. My Father was working in other places somewhere in the country. Therefore, my mathematics teacher was like a real father to me.

After my graduation from the high school I studied in Kaunas University of Technology and received a M. Sc. degree in Electrical and Computer engineering in 1963.  After graduating from the University I worked in a Special Construction Bureau at the Vilnius computer factory for two years. I would  not say I liked the constructor's work very much. Thus, in Autumn of 1995 I began my Ph.D. studies under a supervision of Dr. Laimutis Telksnys at the Institute of Physics and Mathematics (later Institute of Mathematics and Informatics) in Vilnius , Lithuania. In the former Soviet Union our Institute, headed by professor Vytautas Statulevicius, was among the most prominent in theory of probability and statistics. Together with Vilnius University, the Institute is a permanent organizer of triennial Vilnius International Conferences on Probability of Statistics, a continuing the former Berkley Symposiums. We had a very good (for the Soviet Union, SU) scientific library with a great number of scientific journals on probability and statistics. It was very important for me to have qualified consultants at hand. After 3 years I obtained my Candidate of science (equivalent to Ph. D) degree, and 9 years later I was awarded the higest degree, a Doctor of science of the USSR (from the Institute of Electronics and Computer science in Riga in 1978).

 Since 1965 I am working at the institute of Mathematics and Informatics in Vilnius. I enjoyed research work and contacts with my colleagues from other parts of the gigantic SU during a lot of scientific conferences and individual visits. The greatest influence in determining the direction of my research work was exerted by my scientific supervisor Prof. L. Telksnys, my colleague then Ph.D. student Arvydas Motuza, a General of SU Air forces professor Vladimir Pugachiov, very friendly and at the same time competitive contacts with Dr. Vladimir Vapnik, both from the Institute of Control Theory in Moscow, and my friendship with my colleagues Dr. Gennadij Lbov and Nikolai Zagoruiko from the Institute of Mathematics in Novosibirsk, Siberia. I am very happy to have had very good contacts with researchers from the laboratory of Statistical methods at Moscow State University Dr. Jurij Blagoveshenskij, Aleksander Deev, Lev Meshalkin including the head of the laboratory, professor Andrei Kolmogorov. I was a frequent guest there, working in their superb library, having discussions, taking part in scientific seminars, presenting my own talks. These contacts helped me to determine my scientific research methodology in the Multivariate analysis and Statistical pattern recognition.

 After the collapse of the Soviet Union the scientific contacts with my friends and colleagues from Russia and other former soviet republics were broken.  However, now I was given the possibility to visit Western countries . Here I have found a number of good colleagues and friends. My contacts with Dr. Anil Jain from Department of Computer science at Michigan State University probably had   the greatest influence to my research work. At first he visited me in Vilnius, later I visited him twice in East Lansing. Most importantly, he encouraged me to begin to work on Artificial Neural Networks theory. It became evident that all my knowledge and the greatest part of the results in the statistical pattern recognition could be almost directly utilized in this interesting research area. During the last decade besides MSU I visited and carried out research work in Baylor University, Texas, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, University Paris 6, France, Bogazici (Bosforus) University in Istanbul, Turkey, RIKEN, Tokyo, Japan, the Ford Scientific research laboratories, Dearborn, Michigan were I was able to work with prominent scientists, discuss scientific problems, read  scientific journals and books. There I gained a great number of friends and colleaques: Anil Jain,  Dean Young,  Eric Backer,  Bob Duin ,  Patrick Gallinari,  Francoise Fogelman,  Bulent Sankur,  Shun-ichi Amari,  Andrzej Cichotski,   Gintaras Puskorius and many others. I am continuing work in the field of ANN and find research work is the best profession in life for me.