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Information Technology (IT) Pioneers

Retirees and former employees of Unisys, Lockheed Martin, and their heritage companies

People G-H, Chapter 13

 1. Topical Article Contributions:

Thirty people have contributed 60 technical articles or tidbits - also, see Legacy, Our Stories chapter.

  • Bill Galle, Art Gehing, Bill Geiger, Millie Gignac, Lyle Gilbertson, Harry Goldbacher, Alan Goldstein, John Gould, Ken Graber, Lee Granberg, George T. Gray, and Bob Grueschow.
  • Chuck Halls, Glen Hambleton, Ron Handy, Fred Hargesheimer, Quint Heckert, Al Heiden, Carroll Hershey, Bradley Hinman, Curt Hogenson,
  • Dieter Hoffmann, Gary Hokenson, Lee Holck, Chuck Homan, James A. Howe, Ned Hunter, Bruce Hyslop, and Jim Hyslop.

2. Career Summaries - G:

2.1 Bill Geiger, (1959-90)

    Shortly after graduating from North Dakota State University with a BSEE I joined Remington Rand Univac as a member of a new recruit class of “double E’s“ and math/science majors numbering in excess of twenty in June 1959. I had previously attended the University of North Dakota receiving a BSC in Marketing in 1953 followed by work at Goodyear Tire & Rubber as a District Sales staff man doing sales promotion, statistical analysis and advertising and in the Air Force as a communications intelligence officer.
Our initial indoctrination to Remington Rand UNIVAC took place at the training facility on Ford Parkway where we became familiar with a new (to us) version of math involving octal notation and binary numbers, among other things, as well as fundamentals of programming. One characterization of engineers and programmers at that time was that virtually all of us wore pocket protectors well stocked with pens and pencils. We were not quite out of the slide rule era. You would likely see a Freiden calculator as a common fixture on engineers’ desks as opposed to the PC you would see on engineers’ desks today. Lunchtime games frequently played included “Go”, a game of Oriental origins that math majors liked. The Journal of Mathematics was not an uncommon on sight. A new language of the programmer seemed to becoming more commonplace.

      My first assignment was of short duration in developing plans and programs for TEWA (another new term meaning Threat Evaluation and Weapons Assignment) where several of us were involved with personnel from the Applied Physics Lab of Johns Hopkins University who were under contract with the Navy’s Bureau of Weapons on the Navy “Three T Program" (Terrier, Tarter, and Talos missile systems.) Within the year I was assigned to perform analysis of the NTDS Service Test display system (Hughes Aircraft developed), its use in weapon assignment functions, and to develop USQ-20 computer programs (machine or absolute code) and procedures for test of the display subsystem as well as the UNIVAC-developed Video Processor and programs to assist in aligning and calibrating various shipboard sensors. These tests were performed at the Naval Electronics Lab in San Diego where sizeable cadres of Univac programming personnel were located onsite housed in the adjacent barracks area to support early NTDS program development.
     The Navy followed up NTDS Service Test by establishing the Fleet Computer Programming Center Pacific in San Diego which UNIVAC provided major support for with several hundred software development personnel located onsite at the FCPCP facility adjacent to the Navy Electronics Laboratory and in nearby offices. These personnel later became heavily involved in the development of the B-2 program for an automated shipboard tactical data system for the Federal Republic of Germany with a test site within our San Diego facility and also programs for the Marine Corps Aircraft Landing System (MATCALS). I think it is interesting to note that the Navy chose an officer of Chinese descent, CDR Ming Chang, as the project manager for this German program. He was later to become the first naturalized Chinese to attain the rank of admiral in the U.S. Navy and I believe became the Navy Inspector General.
     The integration of the various NTDS shipboard equipments required an extensive system of tests of individual equipments as well as their operation when functioning within the entire system complex. A series of programs termed POFA/IPOFA (Integrated Programmed Operational and Functional Analysis) were Univac-developed and greatly assisted the Navy in proving the overall functionality of NTDS equipment and in their integration into operating subsystems and systems. Weapon Direction System Mk 11 was the next extension of NTDS incorporating closer ties with the fire control radar and missile launcher which had previously been controlled by analog computers. Mk 11 integrated the fire control function into NTDS providing, to the best of our knowledge, the first digital closed loop control system for large electro-mechanical systems such as the shipboard missile system radar director and the missile launcher. Launcher control (load, fire, etc.) was provided by a UNIVAC-developed Weapon Control Panel. Interface with the analog radar director and launcher was provided by analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters in the Fire Control Data Converter also developed by Univac in conjunction with our subcontractor, Ford Instrument Company, a sister division within the Sperry Corporation. The radar director and previously employed analog fire control computers were built by another Sperry Corporation Division.
     With the experience gained in the development and integration of computers and associated equipment, operational and test programs for NTDS as well as for the Navy’s ANEW program for the P-3C ASW Surveillance aircraft, the division extended its systems activities into Air Traffic Control (ARTS III), SPN-10/42 Automated Carrier Landing Systems, Marine tactical systems (MATCALS), Canadian Patrol Frigate, attack (SSN 688) submarine systems and a number of U.S. and international military surface, airborne and submarine programs. Major proposal efforts were conducted on a number of surface, subsurface and airborne tactical and surveillance programs, including the Navy’s DXGN and ASMS programs partnered with major platform and weapons systems contractors. The position of being the supplier of the computer system on many of these programs gave us a unique advantage to pursue major system roles. A number of other U.S. military or government programs employed computers following the development of the USQ-20, including the Trident/Polaris Navigation System, NASA Shipboard Telemetry System, Minuteman Missile System, cruise missile communications and the USAF Wild Weasel program among others. A number of significant new technologies were employed in some of these systems including thin film and wire memories, touch screen operator input capability, and fiber optic communications.
     Following involvement in Mk 11 and POFA/IPOFA testing, my association with programs and projects evolved more into organizational and program management functions including system and design engineering, marketing, program management and general administration. In the early '70s I was asked to serve on a NATO Industrial Advisory Committee led by U.S. Navy personnel and comprising civilian representatives from the UK, Italy, France, Netherlands, Federal Republic of Germany, and the U.S. Naval Research Lab. The objective of this committee was to examine how interoperability could be achieved between NATO Navies and their ships. This activity was extremely interesting to see the interplay between individuals from various countries, each with his own ideas and experience as well as nationalistic views, participate in the development of a common approach to achieve interoperability. Capt Eric Swenson was a prime mover for this committee and the work it undertook. He was also an avid railroad fan and as a result, our travel throughout Europe on quarterly trips was almost entirely by train. It was his objective to ride as many of the world's train routes as possible. Travel in Europe proved to be interesting to say the least. On passing through cities on our route at any time of day or night, Capt. Swenson would get off the train even at the very briefest stops to take pictures of the station name for his record. One journey from Rome to Boulogne, France, on Palm Sunday weekend, 1975, was particularly memorable because we had to stand for almost the entire trip due to holiday crowds and lack of seating. Capt. Swenson was a friend and just one of many highly qualified Navy officers and personnel who we had the privilege to work with on a number of programs.
     As program manager on a number of key programs, responsibility fell on me as well as others to meet with key Navy personnel when problems were encountered. There was a period when the UYK-7 computer was suffering from a combination of performance/reliability issues complicated by questionable Navy maintenance. Weekly meetings with Admiral Wayne Meyers were required at his insistence. He could do a very good job of admonishing UNIVAC as well as any other AEGIS contractor for their failure or the failure of their equipment to meet his expectations, which were often very high. He would routinely sit back in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk and “blast away.” He had one interesting admonition for the Navy itself which I had never heard from other Navy personnel. When he heard his ships referred to as “vessels” he was upset. He was heard to state that “vessels” were pots you put under your bed with an obvious purpose. I wonder if the Navy will take this position into consideration when they christen the DDG-108 in his name.
     There were many other “interesting” occasions involving meetings with key Navy personnel. During early days in production of the UYK-20 the Navy was insisting on a very extended and extensive burn-in test procedure before acceptance. I participated in the negotiations for this procedure which took place with Capt. Chuck Hager and were extremely long and difficult to say the least. The test that resulted was one of the most extensive, long term test programs for any piece of Navy procured electronic equipment up to that time. Fortunately, our factory and engineering personnel proved that they and the UYK-20 were up to the task.
     The 30 years I spent in the employ of and at many levels and in many capacities within Remington Rand Univac, Sperry Rand Univac, Sperry Univac and Unisys were years that I treasure. The people I worked with were almost universally people I had the very greatest respect for in terms of their ethics, intelligence, talent, and perseverance. As individuals they routinely demonstrated a total commitment to their work and to the goal of making Univac products and services successful, whether the output was a proposal, a computer program, a computer or other electronic system. They had a work ethic that was unmatched in my observance working with personnel from a good number of other companies and countries. I believe our customers recognized this and as a result we had a great deal of follow-on business from a number of customers. I have many memories of individuals who were outstanding in performing all sorts of jobs whether they were in technical or administrative functions. I am proud to have worked with so many great people.
     When I told my employment counselor at North Dakota State University in the spring of 1959 that I had accepted a job with Remington Rand Univac Military Division he made comments implying that this was equivalent to taking a job with the post office – routine work but not offering great opportunity. Many times I have thought that I would like to go back and tell him how very wrong he was.

2.2 Millie Gignac, March 1956 to April 1986.

    I started with Remington Rand Univac on March 26, 1956, as a clerk in the Payroll Department.  This was in Plant 2 on Minnehaha Avenue, St. Paul. I was soon promoted to the job as secretary to the Director of Financial Control, and soon was very active in the Company's United Fund Drive (for several years), the Company golf tournament and was very involved for a number of years with the selection of the Company's Winter Carnival princess. During this activity, I worked closely with the Public Relations Department.
     In 1962 I was transferred to the position of secretary to the Personnel Director and in 1966 was promoted to Group Leader in the Personnel Department. After that I became Supervisor of Records and Benefits. I transferred to the Corporate Office in Blue Bell in 1969 as a Employee Information Specialist, and in 1972 was promoted to Supervisor of Benefits Research and Administration. The following year, I was made a Manager and provided functional direction to all the Operating Divisions Personnel Departments, with respect to group insurance and retirement programs.
     I was transferred back to St. Paul in 1974 as Manager of Pre-Retirement Counseling for the Twin City Operations. I was promoted to Manager of Administration in the Resources Group in Defense Systems in 1975, and while in that job, started planning (in 1979) for a 'retiree club' and a clubroom for retirees. We cut the ribbon on the clubroom in July 1980 and had our first general meeting in September of that year. We elected officers, made plans for monthly meetings and rules were drawn up. The VIP Club was born!  [Editor's note: The first VIP Club president was Al Mueller, retired manager of the Antenna Coupler Department.] I promoted volunteerism to the retirees and soon became a volunteer myself.
    In October 1980 I was promoted to Director, Administration and Benefits and was thrilled to be the first female in Univac Twin Cities Operations to hold a Director title.
    I retired April 1, 1986 after 30 good years of employment with a good company. I am still very involved in volunteerism and find it one of the most rewarding and enjoyable things I have ever done. I've published my life history in a book and had a stamp created with my photo.

2.3 Jay Gildemeister, 1984-1989, part of 1992, then 1997-2008

     After spending many years in the Navy, I was hired by Raytheon Service Company in 1977 to certify SONAR and Combat Systems equipments on the DD963 and DDG 993 Class Destroyers in Pascagoula, MS. I had run into the Sperry field engineering teams in my Navy days when commissioning the USS Virginia (CGN-38) and the USS Jesse L. Brown (DE 1089) but never had the appreciation for the teams until working at Ingalls Shipyard in Mississippi. One of the reasons I came to Sperry after Raytheon and CACI, was the team of Combat System Field Engineers (at that time run by Pat Casey). In my opinion, that group of personnel was the finest group of customer service representatives ever established to support the Navy. I can recount many stories of problems during construction and testing where company reps (Raytheon, Honeywell, GE, etc.) were called in to solve problems. The Sperry guys would come aboard, check out the UYKs, determine the problem wasn’t theirs, and then “Fix the Problem” regardless if it was a Radar, Fire Control or Weapon System. To bad they were disbanded a few years after my arrival at Sperry.
     I was hired into the Sperry Systems Assurance Department in September of 1984. Interesting part of that story was a memorable evening at Vogie’s with Billy Mitchell and Pat Casey prior to my interview the next day. It made that day of questions and answers difficult to say the least. Thank God for lunch at the Chart House where I corrected my chemical imbalances. Regardless, I was hired initially to write technical manuals for the Undersea Systems organization. In late 1984, I was transferred over the System Integration and Test Department to work the Royal Australian Navy (RAN DDG) program. I assisted System Engineering Services, worked with C3 Pty Limited and NAVSEA to identify and correct deficiencies. It was during this period of time that I had some of my most interesting and fun times with people like Will Roberts, Paul Hove, Dave Kolling, John Fritz, Larry Debelak, Jim Bougie, John Lenvik, Jim Wikoff, Dave Bohne, and Rick Stevens.
     I began to contribute more and more to program new business efforts like ASWOC C3, NAS, MK53 A/C, NUWES and ABCCC. The MK 53 reminds me of Jim Stage. Someone should ask him if he is still upset about having his tie “scissored” at Pinnacle Peak in San Diego. In early 1987 I transferred to Unisys Systems Development. That involved the Canadian Patrol Frigate (CPF) program and working with the Paramax team in Montreal. Other programs worked during this time involved FDDS, ATACC, SSN-21, CCS MK 2 and Lamps MK3 supporting Undersea Systems and Airborne ASW programs.
One of the last programs I worked in 1989 before my leaving Unisys, was the start of the NSA/NSH program proposal in Ottawa. I then left Unisys and worked as an independent contractor and consultant from 1989 to 1992. One of the major programs worked during that time frame was the Merlin Helicopter Program in Owego, NY for IBM Federal Systems (now LM Systems Integration). That involved the proposal effort and upon winning, over one year in the UK supporting the program start-up. One evening while relaxing in Owego, Paul Flagg approached me about a position at Paramax on the NSA/NSH program in Montreal as it had finally been won. I accepted and worked on the Program Management Team until its cancellation by the new Canadian Prime Minister the day after his election.
     This led to more travel and employment with Bell Textron Marine, Litton Data Systems and Boeing Rocketdyne back down on the Gulf Coast until accepting a job offer in 1997 with Lockheed Martin Tactical Defense Systems back in Eagan. It was interesting to note at that time I could not retain any of my prior service for vacation and benefits, however I was given the very same employee number that I had over 8 years before. Bob Dewey hired me into the logistics organization to author and lead the ILS portion of the Q-70 Recompete Proposal. After winning and working the program for a few years, I was asked to help out on P-3 Programs. I primarily was involved with new business development and worked multiple programs (AIP, Brazil, Korea, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal, and Taiwan). More great people were met such as Herb Baker, Teresa Hennes, Bruce Olsen, Dick Fuhrman, Bob Pagac, Jim Conn, Tom Cegla, and Kenny Norstrem to name a few.
     Recently I have supported multiple LM business units (Aero/IS&GS, SI, etc.) developing technical approaches and proposals for programs such as AMF JTRS, Deepwater, BAMS, HFTS, Presidential Helicopter and PMRF. The logistics organization is now called Global Sustainment. That name is probably better than some of our last names, i.e. Transportation Services, however I have not yet figured out how to sustain the globe.
     As I am preparing this it is approaching 2008 and I will pretty soon cease supporting all the other retirees’ pension plans and truly become part of the VIP club as a retiree. It has been and still is (for the most part) been a great ride. You may have noticed I mentioned a lot of people by name. Many more former and current personnel could have been mentioned. These people that I have been associated with are what makes companies like Sperry and LM great, although I miss the “old days” when we played as hard (harder in some cases) as we worked.

2.4 Kevin R. Giles, CIA, CPA [2002-present]

Manager of Regulatory Compliance, MS2 Tactical Systems
Directly reports to the MS2 Audit Director in Moorestown, NJ and indirectly reports to the local CFO and Director of Business Management in Eagan MN facility. Manages a department of five employees. Manages the residency and is the primary point of contact for sixteen governmental audit (DCAA) and engineering quality (DCMA) in-house oversight agents at the Eagan Facility.
• Site Audit and Regulatory Compliance Lead for a $750 million dollar Tactical Systems Line of Business (LOB) with locations in Eagan MN, Clearwater FL, San Diego CA, and Virginia Beach VA.
• Responsible for overhead rate negotiations and final incurred cost reporting with the US Government.
• Ensures LOB compliance with FAR, DFAR, CAS and GAAP regulations.
• Directs financial, operational, information technology and regulatory compliance audits.
• Manages external audits reviews by external CPA’s (Ernst and Young) and Department of Defense Agencies such as DCAA, DCMA and DCIS.
• Implemented and managed the Tactical Systems LOB Sarbanes-Oxley compliance program.
• Led the implementation of SAP security controls for a $4 billion LM Business Segment.
• Member of Independent Research and Development (IR&D), New Business, and Capital Boards for Tactical Systems LOB.
• LM21 Excellence Six Sigma Green Belt Certification (2005).
• Member of the Tactical Systems Diversity Council.

ALLINA HEALTH SYSTEM, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1997-2002
An integrated healthcare system with $3 billion in revenues and 22,000 employees.
Director, Audit Services 1999-2002 - Responsible for the direction of internal financial and operational audits for both the Medica Division (Insurance Business) and the Allina Hospitals and Clinics Division (Health Care Delivery Organization). Reported to Vice President of Audit, Treasury and Tax.
• Established and led Medica Health Plan’s regulatory compliance audit function.
• Developed annual audit work plans through formal organization-wide risk assessments.
• Worked with management to implement effective internal business controls.
• Coordinated the annual external financial audit by the firms of D&T and E&Y.
• Coordinated and answered to external reviews by regulatory agencies and authorities such as US Office of Inspector General, MN Attorney Generals Office, MN Department of Commerce and MN Department of Health.
• Charter member of the Allina Compliance Steering Committee that established an effective system wide compliance program.

Senior Internal Auditor, Audit Services 1997-1998
• Acted as in-charge auditor for financial, operational and regulatory compliance audits.
• Conducted audits on Allina Health System’s corporate and shared service functions such as Treasury, Tax, Payroll, Human Resources/Employee Benefits and Accounts Payable.
• Utilized Audit Command Language (ACL) software to do 100% sample data analysis reviews.
• Performed audits for Medica Health Plan on the following functions: Billing and Enrollment, Provider Network and Contracting, Claims Payment Systems, Medical Management, Vendor Management and Administrative Expenditures.

VIRCHOW, KRAUSE AND COMPANY, LLP, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1994-1997 - An upper-midwest regional based consulting and CPA firm with over 900 associates.
Senior Staff Accountant
• Led audit engagements for entities with assets up to $400,000,000 and was responsible for their related tax returns.
• Supervised and reviewed the work of up to five junior staff accountants.
• Industries involved with: Employee benefit plans including 401k/403b and multi-employer plans, healthcare, higher education, HUD audits and nonprofit organizations.
PETERSON AND COMPANY, CPA’S, Mankato, Minnesota 1992-1994 - A local accounting firm now part Larson Allen, LLP
Staff Accountant
• Assisted in audits of nonprofit organizations, utilities, local governments, school districts, insurance trusts and wholesale distribution corporations.
• Prepared tax returns and conducted tax research for individuals, partnerships and corporations.
IMMANUEL ST. JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL, Mankato, Minnesota 1991-1992 - This 278 bed hospital is part of the Mayo System and serves south-central Minnesota.
Accounting Intern
• Performed a 12-month internship program in the Fiscal Service Department under the supervision of the Controller.
• Responsible for compiling the operational and capital budgets and assisted in the preparation of the Medicare Cost Report.
• Forecasted hospital statistics and maintained hospital databases.
MINNESOTA ARMY NATIONAL GUARD, St. Cloud, Minnesota 1983-1994
Squad Leader; Rank: Staff Sergeant E-6
• Responsible for a 10-soldier transportation squad.
• Interim Platoon Sergeant (1994) responsible for 40-soldiers and over $2 million in equipment.
• Graduate of three US Army Leadership Courses.
VOLUNTEER ACTIVITY
TEACHER FEDERAL CREDIT UNION (TFCU), Plymouth, Minnesota 2007-Present
TFCU is a 50,000 plus member financial institution with assets in excess of $500 million serving the Twin Cities and Rural Minnesota.
Secretary of the Supervisory (Audit) Committee
• Serving a volunteer position with a two-year team appointed by the TFCU Board
• Oversees the credit unions internal audit function and external audits and examinations
EDUCATION
Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota 1992 - Bachelor of Science, Major: Accounting, Graduated Magna Cum Laude
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) since 1994
Institute for Internal Auditors and Twin Cities Chapter of the IIA since 1997

2.5 Lee Granberg, 1956 -?

When asked to write a career summary, Lee submitted two staff data sheets. As an electrical engineer and manager, Lee has received more patents than any other Legacy person - The Engineering, Patents page lists some of them.

2.6 Paul Gregory ?-1969, 1972-

Now you're really challenging my memory. I left Univac in 1969 to work for a small company called Macro corp. Worked on computers such as the XDS (Xerox Data Systems) Sigma, and others now long forgotten. Then I returned to Univac at Warminster in 1972. Initially there, I worked on the LAMPS ASW acoustic processor, built in ST. Paul, Plant 1 or 2. It was competing with IBM's Proteus signal processor which IBM won. Other Projects at that time were ANEW, which Gerry Butenhoff worked on and a little later the P-3C System Test Program, which moved to Warminster from Dam Neck, VA. When I went to Warminster in 1972, Tom Rougier was the site manager for a short time, then he went to St. Paul. Tom Allen took over and he eventually went to St. Paul, then Jim Sarver came down from New Jersey and took over. Prior to Tom Rougier it was Ron Sagle [who left and formed GRD] and prior to Sagle it was Lynn Keefer. S-3A was moved to Warminster [now Southampton] around 1977, John Gan was project manager. After John left in 1980 I became S-3A project manager.

Gerry Butenhoff helped refresh my memory so I'm going to forward your history to him. [submitted via Gerry Pickering]

2.7 Thomas Grendzinski, 1968-

In 1968, as I decided a career in the United States Army Artillery was not my forte, I begin looking in technical publications at advertisements by technology companies offering computer programming careers. I sent letters of application to many, but the UNIVAC name was a favorite of mine, and I was fortunate to receive an interview that followed with a job offer which I accepted. In those day a few libations during the interview lunch were common and made the afternoon interview less tense than the morning interview.
     My degree in mathematics in 1965 included a semester of programming a computer which was shared with two other universities making our hands on use limited to weeks. Punched data cards, FORTRAN language, and trial and error debug were the learning experience. After university, I worked for a short time while my wife was to complete her final semester. But the conflict in Southeast Asia was current and I signed up and completed basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and officer candidate school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I was assigned to the artillery school at Fort Sill and was asked to program an Army computer for surveying solutions, for geodesic solutions, and also for sound ranging (acoustic) solutions. Fan-folded paper tape input, octal numbered machine code, and limited documentation is what awaited me. At first I failed, but never gave up, and I completed my tasks with excellent results.
     I started my employment with UNIVAC - the name of the company has changed many times, I am finishing my career in an office quite near the one in which I started my career at a company now known as Lockheed Martin. We were a group of people not knowing we were establishing a software engineering discipline and what was to follow in industry and universities. We were mathematics degreed, science degreed, music degreed, and came from teaching and preaching and all other contributing careers. We learned on the job and we taught the job.
     I worked on providing software for the United States Navy (USN). Our team developed command and control software for surface ships and then for subsurface vessels. We interfaced the sensors and weapons and support systems and fighters with Univac computers and software. The engineers from land locked Eagan traveled to the East Coast and traveled to the West Coast to USN laboratories to prove our products. We programmed the CP-642B and CP-667 (a dual mode 30 or 36 bit machine (only a few were ever produced)) using the CS-1 programming language. We used magnetic tape for input and output and debugged using simulation software. UNIVAC was on the forefront of transforming the USN from the World War II Navy to the Navy of recent years. The transformation continues this century with some of the same UNIVAC people of the 1960’s.
     Next, I worked on an international program, the Royal Australian Navy DDG Tactical Data System (AN/UYK-7 computers and the CMS-2 programming language). Once the initial work was completed at Eagan, I supported the products on site in Canberra, Australia for four years in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. This was one of the first successful international programs for the Eagan based enterprise. It also provided a young family of four the chance to travel to and live in a different country, although, in many ways, not unlike our own.
     Upon my return from Australia, I worked on the design demonstration of the AN/UYK-43 and AN/UYK-44 computers. Sperry Corporation, which was us, won the production contract and produced many of these machines.
     I worked on the Canadian Patrol Frigate (CPF) program definition phase which resulted in a contract award. Many people traveled to Montreal to a new company subsidiary of Unisys named Paramax which was formed to provide international content and technology infusion. This also was a very successful program. It was a large program employing hundreds of people with the many coordination problems between the engineering disciples and the performing of work at two different international locations separated by distance that only air travel could overcome. The CPF Program contained significant international content which provided the system and software engineering challenge of interfacing the various subsystems with a distributed computing system using multiple computers (AN/UYK-502) and a data bus (SHINPADS). During this program I performed quality assurance tasks and supervised and coordinated a group of quality engineers.
     The USN turned to us in 1989 to provide an upgrade to the P-3C airplane of new and modern software and computing device. This was a legacy program that Univac had performed on initially when the airplane and its mission were first established. The upgrade program was called CP-2044. I supervised a group of quality engineers on this program. It was a time when new high order programming languages were being introduced and a time when software engineering was being transitioned to a process oriented discipline. The Ada programming language, structured object-oriented design, work stations interfaced into the development environment, phased development, and documented engineering processes were introduced. Many improvements to the P-3C mission system were made and many improvements to the software engineering discipline were made. Because of the two, CP-2044 was program of the year.
     This was now the generation of Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) era for software and hardware that is glued and packaged together for our customer’s unique applications. No more designing product from birth which required a long development phase, but also resulted in long life spans for our products. Instead, technology infusion is planned and exercised from the very beginning of contract award.
     Following CP-2044, another Australian project came to Eagan.  The Australian Air Force requested us to provide a mission system upgrade for their P-3Cs. Our company was contracted to E-Systems, the prime contractor, located in Greenville, Texas. There were difficult moments between the two contractors with regard to requirements and schedule and cost. Good engineering and program management leadership prevailed and excellent software and hardware were delivered to the Australian Air Force. I supervised a hardware and software test group which was mainly responsible for the success of this program. In reality, I was fortunate to be with a group of project people that did not give up and I was swept along with their success.
     I then entered the fall (talking autumn (or ending), not failure) portion of my career doing various system engineering work on programs e.g. BMUP (a P-3C upgrade), Deepwater (United States Coast Guard); proposals e.g. P-3Cs for Taiwan, Portugal, Korea, Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) for the USN.
     The corporate name transitioned from UNIVAC to Lockheed Martin. Fan-folded punched paper tape holding code used with refrigerator sized computers to calling card sized computing devices with unlimited memory availability. It was a good career.

2.8 Bruce Grewenow, 1965-2001

     The early 1960’s was a great time to be an engineer. I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering in 1963 and took a job with Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. in Sunnyvale, CA. Had I remained in Defense business I would have retired with Lockheed. Lockheed had a great program for new hires; work 3 months in a department, move to another, do this for a year and settle down. I settled in Training and taught Theory of Operation, Maintenance, and Programming at the remote satellite tracking stations. Three months on the road at a time was too much for a new family and I joined Univac-Advanced Tactical Systems as a System Design Engineer in late 1965.
     I am one of the luckiest guys in the company with bosses, mentors, and teammates. It started with Don Woodard, Chuck Burk, Hank Zelenka, and Dave Kolling. The test and system integration software we developed had to be ground-breaking as no one had ever done this before; and it ensured the reliability and operability of the Navy Combat Systems. Conducting the AN/SPS-48 Radar/NTDS System Test on a new carrier, the Kennedy, was awesome. So was playing chess at lunch time with Curt Brasket, master chess player and Minnesota State champion. In the 1990’s talking to young employees about standing in front of the computer and debugging the s/w by observing the bit pattern in 18 or 24 lights; or removing an 8K memory drawer with two guys as it weighted over 150 pounds, elicited looks of disbelief and “ya sure” responses. On one debugging trip to work on a Minesweeper project at the Brooklyn Navy shipyard my wife was with me. She got on a TV quiz show, Eye Guess (Bill Cullen host) and won a trip to Paris for two and $5K in merchandise.

     1969: Became the supervisor of System Test, the NTDS library, and the Military Equipment Test Center (METC). It was my first management experience and I also represented Univac at the NTDS Change Control Board meeting every month in D.C. This was the onset of hundreds of trips to DC over the next 30 years.

     1972: Late in the year a career changing experience brought me to the international business area. Jerry Meyer offered me the Program Management job on a new project; the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Naval Combat Data System (NCDS). This was one of several USN Foreign Military sales programs awarded to UNIVAC and began my 30 years in international business. Morley Moe was the Project Engineer. We had some very interesting people to work with in Australia and some of you will recall the USN PM Faith Rawdon-Smith. The RAN NCDS project involved the design and construction of a Combat Data Systems Centre (CDSC) in Canberra, extensive modifications to the s/w, and installation on 3 RAN DDG’s. When the first DDG arrived in Long Beach, CA for retrofit; Univac, Hughes, and Collins threw a big party for the RAN officers on a paddle wheel boat in the harbor. Dick Seaberg approved travel for many of us to go with wives, he and his wife went too; and we all stayed onboard the Queen Mary. The RAN Captain thanked me after the party and said how great it was forUNIVAC to put-on the party. I felt obligated to tell him there were two other companies involved.
     This project was very successful and resulted in a strong letter of commendation from the Australian Dept of Defense thanking Denny Drake, Jerry McGee, Morley Moe, and myself for a super job. In later years UNIVAC established a joint venture company (C3I) with EMI Australia (EMI worked closely with us in the CDSC) and we transferred mil-spec circuit board technology to Morris Productions in Sydney, thirty years later I still communicate with 3 of the Aussie partners.

     1974: New assignment now included project management responsibility for all International Navy applications, primarily German, Japanese and Australian programs and follow-on marketing in France and Italy. Don Lovely’s write-up in the Systems-International Section of the Legacy provides an excellent description of our on-going Japanese Navy business. New projects about this time were Australian Submarine FCS (AN/UYK-20 h/w only), Collins Link 11, and TENNE s/w in Germany. I got a lot of help in Germany from a guy who really knew his way around, Dennis Christ. I am glad we worked well together, we would meet again. There were some business issues in Japan that needed resolution and I worked with Tommy Tamagawa (former Japanese Naval Attaché to the USA ... then with UNIVAC in DC) and Taki Saito in our Tokyo office to fix them. More appropriate would be, I accompanied Tamagawa while we determined what was needed and he determined how to fix it. Tamagawa’s leadership/mentoring would serve me the rest of my career.
     He and I made a trip to Indonesia to see if there was work there for us. He had many contacts high up in the Indonesian Navy and after a week in Jakarta, he said … “let’s go home, we can’t do business here.” Wise man Tamagawa. One more story... at a dinner in Yokosuka with Tommy and all high ranking officers (I was the only non-Japanese), I asked my server what the impressive calligraphy behind me on the wall said. She looked nervous and asked Tommy something in Japanese and he said “you can tell him.” It was a very complementary description of the beautiful tatami room we were in, the food and servers … signed by Adm. Yamamoto, circa 1942. Some things one never forgets.

     1966-1980 Summary: Throughout this time period our International business underwent many changes and if I may borrow from Chuck Hammond for a moment, it will provide a better picture of the exciting opportunities and the sequence of events. In 1966 Univac DSD was awarded its first major international program, the German B-2 program. It was an FMS Case and was the start of an excellent relationship with the USN FMS organization. Several other career write-ups do an outstanding job of covering the German projects in detail. The USN was actively marketing NTDS hardware and software to NATO and sales were made to the Italian and French Navies around the same time. German opportunities resulted in our Paris office moving to Bonn in 1968; followed by the German Fast Patrol Boat contract in 1969. Then the USN turned its FMS attention to the Pacific and Mid-East. In 1972 we were awarded the Japanese DDG Combat Data System, followed by Australian DDGs in 1973, and in 1975 the Iranian DD-993 Destroyer Project which was an order of magnitude larger than any DSD international contract to that date. At this point the USN lost interest in actively marketing FMS business. This factor, coupled with the large business base with Iran, Germany, Japan, and Australia prompted DSD to form the International Systems Division. From 1975 through 1979 the successful awards were: Japan ATC, Canadian CP-140, German Flight Plan Processing (ZKSD), German F-122 Frigate, two communication systems projects with Israel, Japanese P-3C Ground Support System, German S-143A FPB, Korean ATC, Greek Submarine FCS, Saudi Naval Expansion Program, and h/w sales to the United Kingdom. International revenue had grown from $10-15M per year in the early 70’s to $102M in 1979. Marketing offices had opened in Tokyo, Canberra, and Athens. Consultant contracts were established in Egypt, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Yugoslavia, Spain, and Israel. The Canadian operations opened a sales office in Ottawa in 1978 and with the CPF win a separate subsidiary was set up. The CPF contract was then estimated to be valued at over $1B for Sperry and $200M to CSD. ISD was disbanded back to the functional divisions in 1979. One had to be flexible in these times to work in international business.

     1977: In the summer of 1977 the Australian Navy awarded us a contract to conduct a 6 month trade-off study in Canberra, to determine the best combat system for a class of small ships … the Small Ship Combat Data System (SSCDS). This was a marketing dream. We were fully funded by the RAN and I took a team of talented people with families to Canberra for 6 months. We brought down specific experience as required. Our original RAN NCDS team of Denny Drake and Morley Moe led the engineering studies; supported by visits from Chuck Burk, Ernie Lantto, and others I know I should recall but can’t. With a team like that and Lynn Keefer managing the marketing aspects, success was assured. Surprisingly, after studying systems from around the world we recommended a version of the USN NTDS … hard to believe. It was however, so obviously the best combat system that no one could argue with the result. We made a final day long presentation to over 100 Aussies including a few Admirals. Jim Stahley was my boss and he came down for the presentation too. The RAN were very impressed and wanted to get us under contract ASAP. Unfortunately, an Australian election took place shortly after our presentation … the labor party won over the conservatives and they cut all new funding for the RAN. So close … welcome to the International Market.

     1979: Jim Stahley had a new assignment for me; PM for the AN/UYK-502 computer project.  The UYK-502 would be the first DSD product to be built entirely out side the USA, using only company sponsored funds and sold world-wide. Development and preproduction would be in Minnesota and transferred to Winnipeg for production. We developed a 502 business plan with the Canadian Government, focusing the UYK-502 on CPF and SHINPADS. However, during the monthly project reviews with Dick Seaberg, he would almost grab Carl Boecher by the lapels and shout “when are you going to sell this product outside of Canada.” Carl had a tough job and I don’t know for sure if we ever sold a 502 outside of Canada. Carl became the CEO of another company so has had a successful career. Working with Doug Hair and Glen (Easy) Johnson on the project was a wonderful learning experience for me as all of my experience had been in systems. Another lucky break for me.

     1983: Because of my involvement on the UYK-502 with manufacturing and Canadian Operations I moved on to a totally different arena and left international for two years. Myron Lecy was forming a group to build the Material Management Center. He asked me to join him as a Group Manager Business Management with a job description that was a bit vague (a positive as it let me get involved in many issues). It was an exciting move; the job was to develop and direct MMC plans, policies, and procedures; manage the material acquisition process for major DSD products, and develop strategic business plans linking critical suppliers to DSD. Also, do supplier evaluations, just-in-time deliveries (new concept at that time); and I served on the Corporate Material Management Council and International Offset Committee. The MMC experience was two years of energizing development and learning, working with Myron, Bob Shutt, Marilyn Snyder, and Glen Dykes … you all taught me a lot about a new line of business.

     1985: International Program Management called again in the voice of Tom Morris. There were some issues with a follow-on FMS contract with the Australian Navy project and the RAN asked if I would come back and assist. Tom offered me the position of Director of International PM. I spent some time in Australia and we were able to successfully resolve the problem. Adm. Meinig, US Naval Sea Systems Command wrote a glowing letter of commendation to Al Zettlemoyer extending his personal thanks and appreciation on our teams’ performance. Exact quote: “The performance of your personnel was fully equal to the high standards we have come to expect from Unisys.” Chuck Hammond came on the scene from the USAF with extensive European experience and connections and I now reported to him as PM of International Operations providing management direction for all International projects (except Canada). I have lost track of what happened to bring about these changes. Chuck was with-out-a-doubt Mr. International, a great mentor, boss, and friend. In this time period a group of project managers came to International, we would work together for many years, a formidable team of international experience and talent: Doug Schmitt, Tom Kratz, Bob Pagac, Woody Spitzmueller, Larry Pierson, John Booher, and Dick Johnson; all of us made successful by Mr. International Contracts: Don Blattie.

     1990: Now the job got even more interesting and challenging. I worked for Dennis Christ as Director of International Systems, with the added responsibility of an International Engineering group under Max Tiede and the German Military Systems Division under Manfred Wiese. Again I had the good fortune to work for a great boss with extensive international experience and a super team of people. Major programs at this time were the German F-123 Frigate ($28M), Hellenic Navy Submarine FCS ($39M), Egypt Submarine ($25M), and Japan P-3C ($100M). However, the CSD management structure was not politically suited for a separate International group and we were eventually moved back into the various functional organizations. One might note that this seemed to occur every decade, especially when international was successful.

     1992: I was fortunate enough to end-up working in Marketing for Jim Chupurdia, responsible for all International business (except Canada). This too was an exciting organization with key programs focused by region: Mideast and Africa/ABCCC; Europe/CP-2044; Thailand/RTADS III; Asia and Australia/CP-2044; and ATC/Hong Kong ATC.  Later in 1992 the group became Information Processing Systems and Custom Products Marketing with additional personnel covering the B-2 ACU/ACUE; Contract Manufacturing; Intra-company business; and Air Force C3I. However … this too shall come to pass … one must be flexible in the International arena.

     1993: Unisys Commercial operations in Brazil wanted to team with Mitsui Brazil to purse a $1B project called SIVAM: Sistema de Vigilancia da Amazonia … or System for Surveillance of the Amazon. Unisys Brazil did not have the experience to put together a team involving radar, air planes, massive command and control centers, and $300M subcontracts. They asked corporate HQ for help from Defense to lead this effort and provide the management and engineering skills. Dennis Christ and Jim Chupurdia asked me to be the Acquisition Director and good fortune smiled again as the team came together with Rob Sedlacek for Business Development; Tony Beck and Quint Heckert as the engineering leads; Merle Cole from subcontracts, Guy Eastman proposal management – it doesn’t get any better than that. Many people worked on this proposal over almost two years and I want to thank them all again. I believe to this day that we had the best technical solution, the strongest subcontractor team and “eventually” equal financing. I am in awe today of the team that developed our proposal; you would have to see it to believe it. SIVAM bidders not only had to provide solutions for a myriad of very complex issues but finance the project as well. Our financing was coming from a Japanese Environmental Fund via Mitsui at extremely favorable rates …a key reason Unisys Brazil opted to purse the project. It would take a dozen more pages to adequately describe the SIVAM technical solution; a summary at a very high level follows. Remember most of the Amazon Basin is utterly remote, huge …well you know the rest. System must provide: Environmental Surveillance, Support for Sustainable Development, Social Services for Native Population, Health Programs, Sanitary Control, Civil Defense, Control Illicit Activities (Drugs...Logging..Gold Mining Pollution...etc.), Weather Monitoring and Forecasting, Border Surveillance, Aerial and Territorial Surveillance (via satellites and aircraft), Air Traffic Control (when one flew over the Amazon at that time you essentially disappeared), and Monitor River Navigation. There would be three regional surveillance centers in Amazonian cities to gather and process the information; with all activities coordinated by a Management Control Center in Brasilia.
     Unisys would be the prime contractor/integrator through a subsidiary we established, Unisys Brazilian Systems of which I was the legal representative. Key subcontractors: Westinghouse: Radars and AEW; Hughes: ATC and Real Time Surveillance; NEC do Brazil: Communications; Environmental Research Institute of Michigan: Satellite Technology for Meteorology/Atmospheric Monitoring; Embraer: Lab Aircraft/Airborne Surveillance; Tecnasa: Weather Radar/Communications. Eventually Lockheed would provide C130 Aircraft and AEW.
     On one of our many trips to Brazil we took our team into the Amazon Basin to see for ourselves the environment in which we would work. Rob, Tony, Quint, Merle, and I flew into Bogotá, Columbia and missed the connecting flight to Manaus, Brazil. Two nights in Bogotá with gun fire outside our hotel was exciting. Finally we got to Manaus in the heart of the Basin where the Solimoes and Rio Negro Rivers join to form the Amazon River. Along with reps from Westinghouse and Unisys Brazil we flew in a chartered plane up the Rio Negro to a small town near the Columbian border. It looked like a western town in the US back in the 1800’s, with gold assay offices included. We learned a lot from that trip and had a much greater appreciation for the task ahead of us.
     We did not win the SIVAM project for a variety of reasons that were summarized in a lessons learned summary to the CEO, Jim Unruh. I believe financing issues were the key problem. The Japanese loan became doubtful late in the bid process. I worked with the US EXIM Bank and was able to set-up a $700M loan late in the bid process; albeit the rates were higher and the low cost loan from Japan was a primary reason for pursuit. Raytheon played the political game at a level with both Governments that we did not approach and their top management, including the CEO, was actively involved in every detail. It was said in the press that they delivered a copy of the proposal to Bill Clinton for support. The down select was surprisingly moved up to May 24, 1994. We were in Sao Paulo with Dennis Christ and key execs from our subcontractors for some politicking of our own when we got the word. Brazilian elections were coming up in October and the incumbent government polls were weak; they wanted to award a contract before the elections. DASA and Unisys were eliminated; Raytheon and Thompson CSF were finalists.
     The controversy that ensued over the next two years bordered on unbelievable to say the least. A full page article in Business Week (Dec. 95), and other stories in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, and many more pubs described the scandal surrounding the SIVAM bid process: alleged bribery by the down selected companies, fraud involving the Brazilian system integrator, ESCA; and much, much more. I had a file full of press clippings. No contracts were awarded until years later when Raytheon got a piece of the action. I wonder today, if we had made the down select and won a $1B contract at the very time Unisys was selling Defense, what would have happened???

     I spent the next 6 months working on a Business Plan I called GEMS: Global Environmental Monitoring System. Vietnam was quite interested, Quint or Tony made one trip; but no company funding was available to pursue the possibilities. The Defense business was in the process of being sold to Loral and a new costly pursuit like GEMS was not viable. I moved to Unisys Commercial as a Principal in the Services Business thanks to all the good contacts from SIVAM. I still have a letter from the Brazilian Ambassador, whom I had met in Washington D.C.; addressed to me: President Unisys Corporation. I didn’t use this letter in moving from Defense to Commercial on the very day Loral bought Defense Operations.

     The next 5-6 years were spent working in almost every Asian country, Australia, and New Zealand; and I made one more memorable trip to Brazil. Retired in 2001. I would like to thank all the brilliant engineers and teammates who made my job easy; the mentors/bosses who taught me how to do business and made each day a great experience…what a fantastic company and group of people.

2.9 Burton Gunderson, 1961 to 2002

After graduating from Concordia College-Moorhead Minnesota with majors in math and physics in May 1961, I joined a company known as Remington Rand Univac (RRU) on June 12, 1961. I had been interviewed and subsequently hired earlier in the spring. The trip to St. Paul from Fargo for the interview was the first plane trip I had ever taken and little did I know how many trips and time on airplanes were in store for me with my new job. I was hired in as an associate programmer at $104.00/week. A couple of fellow Concordia graduates were hired by Control Data as programmers and interestingly enough, they were offered the identical salary. Over nearly 41 years with the company from RRU to retirement from Lockheed Martin, I was fortunate to work on so many interesting projects and with so many great people, it is hard to summarize, but I will hit the highlights.

My first assignment was in the Nike Zeus Dept. which was under the direction of Earl Joseph. My first immediate supervisor was Bob Remund. But, before I could actually start the project, I attended two months of training in programming the Nike Zeus Target Intercept computer and the IBM 7090. This training was conducted by Sam Poppleton at the training facility on the corner of Ford Parkway and Mississippi Blvd [Editor's note: the original plant 6]. The next generation Nike computer called the General Purpose Digital Computer (GPDC) was under development and we were to write an assembler and GPDC simulator for Bell Telephone Labs (BTL) in Whippany, New Jersey, to run on the IBM 7090. I worked on the assembler and traveled to BTL for debugging, testing and maintenance of the assembler. T he GPDC had a unique read-only memory system which consisted of bits of oxide on aluminum cards which were about the size of a punch card. The GPDC became part of the Multi Array Radar/White Sands (MAR/WS) System, and I participated in writing of the Operational Real-Time Program and the Data Reduction Program. I also was responsible for converting the assembler to GPDC code so we could assemble our programs on the GPDC on-site instead of at BTL. The MAR/WS system was being developed by the Sylvania Corp. in Boston and installed at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. So, this project required extensive travel to Boston, White Sands and New Jersey for checkout. As a sidelight to this, I was on a trip to Sylvania in Boston with some other folks on the fateful November 1963 day when President Kennedy was assassinated. The city virtually shut down. It was even hard to find a restaurant open. But Sylvania stayed open, so we had to stay and work instead of coming home.
     Over the next couple of years I worked on smaller projects developing I/O handlers for the Fastrand data storage system, displays and printers, data reduction programs and several other operational type programs. These projects included the Army War Room and a Navy carrier inventory program called Moon Beam. The software was written for the 1218 computer. The Army War Room required a lot of travel to the Pentagon for software checkout. During this time, I also designed and wired some 1004 plug-boards for use in the Defense Systems Computer Center and the Navy Electronics Labs in San Diego.
     For the next several years, I got into writing test software which led to being involved in testing in one form or another for the rest of my career. I developed test software including Design Verification Routines (DVRs), POFAs, maintenance routines and Factory Acceptance Tests for numerous devices including multiplexers, printers, Fastrand II and III, displays and remote terminals. Computers that these programs were written for included the 642B, 1230, 418 and 1108.
    In 1967 I was in the first contingent of employees to move to the new plant in Eagan at the intersection of two gravel roads in the country. It was the only building around except for farm buildings. The construction wasn’t complete yet when we moved in so there were open doors, etc. I caught mice in my desk drawers for several nights running. I remember Dick (Ole) Olson catching a bat in a cardboard box.

Through various organizational changes, I found myself in the Federal System Division under Ray Kot from 1970 to 1974 and was supervisor of a group of programmers and analysts involved primarily with development of test software and support of commercial projects including benchmark testing and post-award assistance to customers. My managers during this time frame were Don Moe and Bob Barfknecht.

     In 1974 I transferred back into the Defense Systems Division (DSD) in the Systems Evaluation Dept. under Wilt Anderson. From 1974 to 1984, I was primarily involved in software testing as a group leader and/or test director on several projects including Improved Tactical Air Operations Center (ITAOC) at Camp Pendleton, California, Tactical Flag Command Center (TFCC), Canadian Message Handling System (CMHS), Malaysian Automatic Message Switching System (MASS) and various other smaller efforts. During this time, I also was responsible for publishing the DSD Software Quality Assurance Manual.
     Next I was assigned to the Marine Air Traffic and Control System (MATCALS) as lead for the software testing at Mare Island, California, first article testing of the shelters at Plant 2 and Systems Integration Tests at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland.
     Next, in 1986 and 1987, I took a break from the testing world and took an assignment on the Canadian Patrol Frigate (CPF) project as the Operator Interface Coordinator responsible for standardization of the operator interface at the various operator consoles and coordination with operator manual developers and programmers of all aspects of the operator interface. I went back to the test world on CPF as test lead for the POFAs and several operational modules.

     In 1988, we won the ABCCC III program to design and produce new capsules to go into the EC-130E aircraft. I was given the lead for the First Article Test & Evaluation (FAT&E) under Dick (Ole) Olson, the Project Engineer and Harry Fager, the Test Director. FAT&E consisted of all the testing required for sell-off of the first capsule system including 1) the Hardware Integration Test (HIT), 2) hardware environmental qualification including Environmental Stress Screening (ESS), vibration, temperature, de-rating, explosive atmosphere, EMI/EMC and System Safety, 3) subsystem tests for the Airborne Maintenance Subsystem, Tactical Battle-staff Management Subsystem and the Communications Subsystem and 4) the System Integration Test (SIT). HIT was a challenge from the beginning because we had to start testing before all hardware had been installed in the capsule. First we had to convince a skeptical customer that we were ready to begin testing, then, when we had some start-up problems, the customer became even more skeptical. I convinced them that if we could get past the problem we were having, the test could continue. We did continue and got through the test successfully. SIT, which involved the first installation of the ABCCC III capsule into the cargo bay of the EC-130E aircraft and integration with the aircraft systems, was a very interesting and tense time. These tests were conducted at the Air Force Reserve base in Minneapolis on a very cold day. This test had very high visibility and many management people, both Air Force and company, were on hand for the event. The first thing of course was to push the capsule into the aircraft and when it went in with no more than two inches to spare all the way around, there was a great sense of relief for all involved. Then our job was to tie down the capsule, and hook up to all the electrical, mechanical and communications interfaces and conduct the functional performance verification. Following all this, with the things heating up over the Iraq-Kuwait situation, the ABCCC III team had the pressure of completing the first two capsules so they could go through Operational Test & Evaluation and be deployed to Desert Storm. Everyone worked hard and long hours to make that happen, and the success story is history. During this time, I had very dedicated and capable help from Pat Bailey, Jan Nitti and Steve Cushing. After this, I had the responsibility of testing and selling off six more production capsules. Next we did a major enhancement to ABCCC III with the incorporation of the JTIDS data link. For testing of this we were able to get the Air Force to provide an AWACS plane for us to communicate with from the air to our installation at Corporate Square. We also had a number of test flights to verify that our JTIDS subsystem did not interfere with any of the other aircraft systems. During this time, I also had responsibility for test plans and procedures for the Advanced Planning System.

     In 1994, when we (Unisys) won the Anti-Surface Warfare Improvement Program (AIP), I joined the AIP group as the System Test Planner responsible for development of the test requirements and development of the plans and procedures for ground and flight tests. An interesting thing about this program was that Lockheed Martin was our subcontractor for the modifications to the P-3C aircraft to be done at the LM facility in Greenville, SC. When we were bought out by LM after a short time as Loral, we had essentially been bought by our subcontractor. That made for some interesting relationships. Even though Eagan was still prime on the program, I had dealings with a couple of people who thought they were now the boss. We went on to getting the first aircraft out of the hanger and successfully ground tested at Greenville, then went to the Patuxent River Naval Air Station (Pax River) for flight tests. A few of us on the program had to go through physical exams and Aircraft Survival Training at Pax River before we could go on any test flights. There was some question with me as far as my eyesight was concerned, whether it was good enough to go or not. We asked the responsible Navy person about it and he said “Mr. Gunderson isn’t going to fly the plane, is he?” We said “No”, and he said “Well, then, he can go.” I participated in several test flights, the longest one being about twelve hours. Following this, I was in charge of selling off the first 12 production aircraft at Greenville. Pat Bailey must be given much of the credit for the success of these tests with her great prior experience with the system software. After the first 12 production aircraft, the sell-off of the following aircraft was handed off to the local field engineering staff in Greenville.
     During this time, I was made the test lead for ASUW programs under Jim Courtright and John Dagon and was the test IPT lead for two more programs.  We received a contract from the Royal Norwegian Air Force for upgrades to their four P-3Cs similar to AIP. Tests on these aircraft were also done at Greenville and Pax River. Then we received the contract for the Block Modification Upgrade Program (BMUP) which was a program to update some older P-3 aircraft. These aircraft were also modified at Greenville and tested at Greenville and Pax River. Again Pat Bailey and later Bob Buth deserve much of the credit for the success of these test programs. During these AIP, UIP and BMUP programs, I traveled to Greenville or Pax River approximately 70 times. I was scheduled to go to Pax River yet one more time on 9/12/2001. Well, we all know what happened the day before. I never made a trip for the company again and retired on January 17, 2002.
     My wife, Susan, and I are now happily retired near Lake Wobegon, the place that time forgot, where all the men are good looking, the women are strong, and the children are all above average.

2.10 Nancy Gunther (1966-2000)

I have read with interest the job summaries that have been posted by many of the people with whom I worked during the 35 years that I spent with Univac, Sperry Univac, Sperry Corp., Unisys, Paramax, Loral, and Lockheed Martin. If you read the job summaries posted by Dennis Abbott, Jim Bougie, Bob Bro, Quintin Heckert, and other personnel associated with NTDS and command and control systems, they represent a fairly accurate summary of the projects that I worked during my time with the company. I worked on the NTDS systems for the DLG-16, DLG-6, CVAN-68, FFG-7 (PF), and CPF surface ships; digital operating system and Over the Horizon Targeting (OTH) system for the SSN attack submarine; communications systems for the NSSN submarine; a tri-service black project, and various other projects. I worked as a programmer for 10 years and advanced to project engineer, supervisor, and manager. Adding another description of the same projects to this compendium seems a little extraneous, so I decided to tackle this job from a human-interest perspective to try and describe the environment that we worked in, and the dedication to the job that most employees displayed at that time.

I hired into Univac in 1966 after graduating from the University of Iowa, Iowa City with a degree in mathematics. My arrival was eagerly anticipated by the gentlemen working in the Advanced Tactical Systems department located in Plant 5 on Prior Ave. in St. Paul, MN. I had been highly impressed with this department because it had a sign by the door that said “access restricted to employees only” and a buzzer for the secretary to open the door. I say that my arrival was eagerly anticipated because the last few employees of the female persuasion had departed the premises earlier that year, and I was the new token female, and a pretty good looking one at that time. [For the record, I was never a token female and the guys soon learned that.] I had interviewed with one of the supervisors responsible for the NTDS system currently being developed for the DLG-16 class of ships, and I remember that during the course of the interview, I kept thinking what a good natured person he was as he smiled and smiled and smiled during the interview. Several months after I had started, and had become better acquainted with my five “cubicle mates” I was told that he was smiling because the guys had been standing up behind my back, and waving handkerchiefs and giving him the thumbs up, meaning “hire her”. The first day that I showed up for work, I was assigned to a six-man cubicle, and introduced to the five jokers already working there. I was informed by one of the more outspoken guys that that they would not be opening doors for me, lighting my cigarettes, and that I would be treated like one of the guys. I said “fine” and thus it was for the next 35 years.

During that first six months on the job, I was introduced to the wonders of military specifications, flowcharting, Mylar tape punching machines, “designation and re-designation”, the world of acronyms, Ozalid machines, and the Military Equipment Test Center (METC).

The specification I disposed of quickly. This guy kept leaving it on my desk in the mornings, I’d look at it and decided that it didn’t make any sense and it was also pretty boring, and I’d go back to the flowcharting job that I was working on. The flowcharting job was also boring, but at least I knew how to do it! Finally I asked one of my cubicle mates who the guy was and why he kept bringing that book over. I was told that the guy was my boss (no one had bothered to tell me) and the book was the [software] specification for the program that I was supposed to work on. Okey dokey.

The flowcharting task was among the more “challenging and thought provoking jobs” ever assigned to me --- just contemplate the joys of being given a listing that was two inches thick and being told to develop a flowchart for every subroutine contained within. Oh, the mind-blowing boredom of it all!

I was assigned the job of developing a small scan routine to display on the front panels of a 1218 computer after it had been booted up but before it had been initialized to run. The code was developed in assembly language, but had to be converted to machine code (I no longer remember whether it was octal, or binary for those of you that remember the good old days), and then manually punched into this machine which generated a Mylar tape that could then be loaded into the 1218 computer at METC. Any mistake made during the entry of the code, or any mistake found when debugging the program meant re-entering the entire set of code at the machine and generating another tape. Ah, the joys of working closely with the machines that were so near and dear to our hearts!

Designation and re-designation. What can I say? I didn’t have a clue what these two things were (and probably didn’t care at the time) and for the life of me, could not understand how five guys in my cubicle and four guys in the cubicle across the aisle could argue for hours and hours about it and still not resolve whatever the basic question was that they were arguing about. I finally realized that “designating” meant assigning a fire control system to a target but I’m not sure anyone ever did come to any agreement on the definition of “re-designating”. Is the world of military computing systems any richer or poorer for the lack? Probably not!

The world of acronyms at that time was a brave new frontier. As I sat at my desk listening to the talk swirl around me, it was completely incomprehensible. It was like listening to people talking in tongues. What was a BAM (Binary Angular Measurement)? What was a SWC (Ship’s Weapon Coordinator)? What was a CFU (Control Formatting Unit)? What was a KCMX (Keyset Central Multiplexer)? What were all of these people talking about? Did they think that I was going to absorb it by osmosis? I started asking questions and developing lists and in future years, whenever a new hire started, a list of acronyms was one of the first things that I provided.

Ye olde ozalid machine. Anyone remember it? The youngsters of the world do not remember a time without copying machines but in that era, secretaries typed memos in triplicate and that was the maximum number of copies ever information needed to be shared or disseminated, a distribution list was attached and the memo was circulated. There was always at least one yo-yo in the department that ferreted the memo away and didn’t get around to reading it, and held up circulation. The ozalid machine could be used to make copies of over sized drawings. It was located in Plant 2 and you had to wait at a counter while an operator made the copies. As I recall, the copies were printed on a thin, almost tissue-like paper, and the ink was blue and blurred.

The Military Equipment Test Center (METC) was located in Plant 2. In 1966, it consisted of a 1218 computer, a paper tape reader, a magnetic tape reader, and probably a 642 computer. It was good only for local debugging and for any system level debugging, we had to take trips to Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, CA. Over the years, the equipment configuration increased significantly to the point that all of the debugging, testing, and certification of the systems was performed at METC, and Mare Island and other sites were used only for integration with other systems. I fondly remember the patch panels that were six feet high and probably six feet wide. I felt as though I had conquered the world of technology once I had learned to cable up a system consisting of two 642 B computers, one or two 1218 computers, associated paper and magnetic tapes, and teletype machines. I’m sure it was a sight to behold in the late sixties when I was wearing a mini-dress and high heels and stretching to reach the top of the switchboard and squatting to access the bottom of it. At one point in time, years later when I was supervising, I had paid a late night visit to METC to check on progress during the midnight shift, and one of the wits had printed on the blackboard “Beam me up, Scotty, there’s no intelligent life down here”.

There are more humorous stories than there is room to repeat them, but some of my fondest recollections are of banter in the office and just idiotic things that happened on the job.

I often wondered what our men in uniform (because there weren’t any or many women working on computerized system development projects at that time) would have thought about some of the dialog between the programmers as they were diligently developing what were considered high tech systems at the time. Some of the classic and often repeated remarks are as follows: “Hey Joe, is port left or right?” “How many fire control systems are there on this ship? “Is aft the front or the back? “Well, then what’s the stern?” “What’s the front of the ship called? Is pitch and roll to the side?” “What's yaw?” “What’s the difference between a radar mile and a regular mile? Why don’t they use regular miles?” “How come he’s got one stripe on his shoulder and the other guy has two?”

Some of my weirdest and fondest memories are related to my gender. At the time I hired in with the company, there had been two women programmers who had left the company during the previous several months. For several years, I was the only female programmer working in the Advanced Tactical Systems department that later became the Navy Systems department. After I had been with the company about a year and a half, I was sent on my first business trip with my boss. We arrived at Dam Neck, VA and were led to a conference room by the civil servant with whom we had been having phone discussions for several weeks. I had done most of the research and had generated the list of questions and we started in on it. After a while, I looked up and a couple of additional people had entered the room and we were introduced. Other people started wandering in and we finally took a mid-morning break. By this time, the conference table had about 15 people sitting around it, and the other three sides of the room were knee deep in men. I asked my boss when we left “Why are all these people in there?” He laughed and said “They wanted to see Univac’s new female programmer!” I guess at that time having a female programmer in the military business was like displaying an unusual and exotic animal at the zoo.

Another of my memories has to do with the lack of women’s restroom facilities at Navy bases during that era. When we traveled to Mare Island to test the systems, no one seemed to know if there was a woman’s restroom anywhere near the computer facilities. One of the guys would go into the men’s room, wait for it to clear out, give me the OK to go in, and then would stand guard until I was finished. Finally, near the end of a three-week trip, one of the secretaries in the administration building showed me a woman’s restroom. It had a door that was about 18 inches wide (that I went through sideways) and inside there was a fairly roomy facility.

One time at Mare Island we were given a tour of one of the ships that was docked for retrofit. At that time, women did not wear pantsuits or jeans to work so I had on a dress and high heels. We were on one of the lower decks and were getting ready to ascend to the next deck and one of the supervisors, being the gentleman that he was, gestured for me to go ahead. I said “No, after you” assuming he would understand why I wanted to go last. He kept insisting and I kept refusing. Finally I said “For heaven’s sake Joe (actually, I believe I may have used wording that was just a little stronger as I was “just one of the guys”), I’ve got on a skirt and I’d prefer that you not look up it!” He turned beet red, scuttled up the ladder (or whatever you call it), and end of story.

I had been with the company about ten years when I was assigned to be the project engineer on the Sea Nymph program. It was a software consultation task on a black project for a Navy agency with which Sperry had not done much business, and it was perceived as a chance to get our foot in the door of a new business area. One of the wits in the department designed a logo for the project; he took a picture of me sitting on the floor at a party, pasted it on top of a dolphin, and surrounded it with standard Navy logo graphics. It was provided to the Navy agency, which eventually modified it to replace my picture with a mermaid, but the final logo bears a distinct similarity to the original graphic. The guys in the department thought it was fitting and appropriate that one of the few females in the department should be the Sea Nymph project engineer. The primary product of the contract was a software management plan and that led to another facet of my career with Sperry. The Navy agency and my department management were extremely pleased with the plan. During the next 25 years I either wrote or was actively involved with the development of most of the software management plans written for proposals and projects within my department.

The people who worked for Sperry Corp. displayed a degree of dedication and willingness to work extra uncompensated hours that is unmatched by most companies in the current era. The unsaid and unsung motto of the personnel was “whatever it takes to get the job done.” I can remember that any day of the week after the official workday was over, that 20 to 30 per cent of the employees in our department would still be at their desks working. And, whereas we might have jokingly said “good enough for the government”, our “good enough” meant that the product that we produced was developed to the highest degree of technical and accuracy standards that we could make happen. This didn’t occur through formalized and institutionalized programs such as quality assurance, configuration management, and Software Engineering Institute (SEI) processes and procedures. It occurred because of the culture in which we worked, which had evolved over the years and had been set by example. It was the result of working for management that at all levels understood the difficulty of the job, the problems that we encountered, and the amount of time that it required to find and fix highly complicated problems. Our management had come up through the ranks and thoroughly understood the type of product that was being developed and the kinds of problems that could be encountered. They encouraged us and actively requested honest answers to tough questions. Every employee felt that he or she had the right to speak his or her mind to management, to make suggestions, and to offer criticisms. I remember overhearing one of the Burroughs VPs make a comment during a multi level management meeting shortly after they bought the Sperry Corp. that “we’re going to change the culture of this organization.” Well, they sure did and to their detriment. Several years later they tried to re-legislate the culture that had existed at the time of the buyout. To their dismay, they found out they couldn’t make it happen and I’m not sure that any of them ever realized that the culture and work ethic that exists within a department or a company can’t be legislated. It’s the result of respecting your employees, being able to understand the jobs that they are doing, having done those same jobs in the past, and setting an example of ethical values and hard work.

I have wonderful memories of the 35 years that I worked for the company between 1966 and when I retired in 2000. We were developing digital systems near the beginning of the computer age when most people didn’t have a clue to understanding what a computer was, how to program it, and how it fit into our jobs. If you mentioned a computer in those days, most people equated it with the banks of magnetic tape machines that were shown in some TV commercials. My parents referred to a listing that I had shown them as “chicken scratchings”!!! The work was challenging and the feeling of satisfaction was unmatched when I saw a ship go to sea with systems being operated and controlled by software that I had developed. I was proud of the work that I had done personally, I was proud of my company, and I was proud that I was making a contribution to the defense of my country. I enjoyed my job, liked the people that I worked with, and felt fulfilled in my career. It’s hard to ask more than that of a job.

As I complete this writing task, and look back at what I have written, I note that once again I stayed true to form. Back in the days before there were page count limitations on proposals, I was the person that people would come to and ask “Can you fill up 25 pages on topic such and such?” Sometimes I had to ask for a definition of the topic, but sure, no problem, I’ll have it ready tomorrow. I’ve always been able to babble with the best of them. With that, I close - Nancy Gunther.

2.11 Tom Goulding (1966-197x)

Hello, Just finished Gerry’s article and had a nice trip “down memory lane.”  I spend a few years with UNIVAC, beginning in about 1966 at the Defense Systems Division in St. Paul.  After about 2 years, Gerry came to me and asked if I would like to transfer to Blue Bell to work in the Pricing group in the International Division.  The “group” consisted of only two of us, first Bob Allen and later, Charlie Young and me.  The two of us priced all transfers from the UNIVAC corporation to the individual subsidiaries.  Those were exciting times with a very small staff of about 8 or so (including Bill Hirsch, Peter Wiel, Bob Draggon and Donnie Uppman and others, all reporting to Geoff Cross) with frequent trips to Europe to assist the subsidiary managers. 

After a few years I took a nine month beak to finish an MBA at Temple University in Philadelphia and came back to work for Al Hyman at UNIVAC.  Gerry mentions relocating the spare parts inventory from Utica, NY, to outside Chicago.  This World Wide Distribution Center (WWDC) was set up from scratch in a large warehouse of 100,000 sq. ft. and Mike Ostick from the Schiphol Airport Distribution center was brought in to manage the set-up.  I was sent out from Blue Bell in 1972 to set up a reporting and management information system. 

    This ended my short UNIVAC career.  I moved to Rochester, NY, to work first for Xerox, and then Bausch & Lomb.  There, at B&L, I happened to meet Lee Johnson, the marketing person Gerry mentions in his article as a UNIVAC salesman that “gave away the store.”  After meeting him, I could sure see that.

   If you pass this on to Gerry, I would like to tell him that he played a key role in my professional and personal life.  With his offer of a job in Blue Bell he opened up the world to a small town Midwest kid who had seen very little and yearned to travel and see the world.  In the few years I spend in the International division my trips to Europe gave me the experiences I sought and added quite a bit to my confidence as my professional career continued.

   I’m glad I happened upon your newsletter.  You’re doing a great service to all the employees who were there at the beginning of the information technology revolution, many of whom were true pioneers in the field. Tom Goulding Wilmette, IL

2.12 Dave Gunderson (1976-80)

Mr. Gunderson was searching the internet for information about the MPC-16 that he had worked with during his ARTSIIIS and EARTS assignments. [https://vipclubmn.org/cp16bit.html#MPC16] He found the VIP Club website then responded to the Legacy call for stories via editor Lowell Benson. That resulted in this 'People' entry plus two career summary segments as EARTS, ‘Our Stories’ for April ’23 and a UYK-23 story as the May ’23 ‘Our Stories’.
https://vipclubmn.org/OurStories.html#2023
A little history by Dave: I was employed by Sperry UNIVAC in the 1976-1980 timeframe. I worked in the Field Installation of both EARTS and ARTSIIIA Systems. My time at Eagan was limited as most of my time was spent at the Minnesota EARTS and ARTS testbeds. Then out to the field on the various installations. When ARTSIIIA wound down, I moved on to a career in the Federal Government. As my time was so brief at UNIVAC, I'm probably best categorized as an unknown associate to most of the old timers who developed and supported Air Traffic Control systems for over half-a-century.

I see that you have an 'Our Stories' section and thought that I'd like to offer a story on my learning the 'trade' (field support) and my EARTS experience in Alaska. In addition to my story, I have a dozen photos of the installation in Anchorage (equipment in place) and the installation team enjoying life in the last frontier.
I don't know if you have any guidelines on what to write or the amount to write? As for me, I'm a storyteller by nature versus talking about technical specifications. If I talk about any of the gear, it will probably relate to issues we had and how we solved them. The real treasure in this is the photos in their Kodachrome glory.
Also, in my post UNIVAC career, I worked in DoD and ran across system issues that the Army had with the Quicklook System and with the UYK-23 computers. Actually that is another interesting story. I supported the Quicklook II system as a Depot level Tech Rep. As with the problems, my experience with the MPC-1616 previously, solved the problems the Army had. Dave   Editing and link insertions of this section and the two 'Our Stories' was by Lowell Benson.

3.0 Career Summaries beginning with the letter H

3.1 Glen Hambleton (1959-1986)

Glen's mini-bio is a downloadable file.

3.2 Bob (R. C.) Hanson,

After graduating from college I went to several interviews, one of the first questions was "have you served your military duty". Since I hadn't I probably went to the bottom of their list. I tried to volunteer for the draft - there was a 6 month wait. I enlisted in the army because it was for 3 years and I could choose a school. I selected the radar repair school which was 48 weeks long. They asked me to remain as an instructor at Fort Monmouth, N. J.. I agreed but was sent to Redstone arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. There I was assigned to the NIKE AJAX radar and computer section, where I learned and subsequently taught the repair course for the analog computer.
     After several interviews around the country I decided that Minnesota was the place to be so I accepted the offer from Remington Rand Univac to be an instructor. This was in 1957. My first introduction to digital computers was the course on the 1103 taught by Gunther Paprotny. We had to learn all the instructions in octal and what happened at each clock pulse during the execution (anyone remember the contents of registers book?)
     I joined the education group which was then preparing courses on the Athena computer for the AF. Shortly afterwards I received a call from Arnie Hendrickson wanting to interview me for a job in his group. After checking with my boss I met him at a restaurant on Ford Parkway near the office I was in. The job was to write programs for guiding the Titan I ICBM. I accepted and went to work for Phil Phipps. The group was small - probably eight people. We had to write guidance programs for the Athena and all the support software we needed on the 1103. The Athena had 256 24-bit words of memory and 8192 18-bit words on the drum. It operated off the drum, a constant took two instructions, if the instruction execution took 1 instruction time it picked up the next address to execute. A multiply took 13 IT's, so the next address executed was 13 later. A divide took 25 IT's. There were no interrupts so the reading of range, azimuth and elevation had to be timed to match the time the radar presented the data. There was a pulse from the radar which forced the Athena to address zero, from there we had to keep track of the execution time until the data was presented by the radar, where we inserted the instruction to read the input. Range was first, then azimuth, then elevation. On my first trip to Bell Labs. in Whippany N. J. I remarked that the radar used in the Titan I system looked similar to the one for NIKE AJAX. The Bell Labs. personnel were amazed that a computer programmer knew anything about hardware.
     The support software we needed included both programs for the 1103 serial 9 and TRANSTEC (which was and experimental computer to determine if transistors were a reliable technology for digital computers.) Computer time was free on TRANSTEC. It finally ended up at the Air Force Academy.
    Support software included simulators -world -missile - the Athena (executed as if it had all random access memory and also as spaced on the drum) Later we built an assembler on the 1103 for the Athena. Later enhanced to what we called a macro assembler. I remember vividly the panic during the first launch we were guiding. I was in the observation room of the Bell Laboratory building at Cape Canaveral. With my mind racing through all the testing we had done - corrections made - I looked up and saw Dean Borden [an analyst responsible for the guidance equations] his face was white as a sheet. My thought was I bet I looked that way also. After the launch there was great relief when we saw that the plot was going right between the range safety boundaries.
     Additional tasks came in the form of guiding satellites into orbits using Thor Able through Thor Delta. This required modifications to our missile simulator to allow us to match varying characteristics of the missiles and the target orbits. New sets of equations were required for each launch also. Some of these payloads were: Transit, the first communications satellite and Tiros, the first weather satellite - these had stationary location with respect to the earth. ECHO a silver balloon which could be seen by eye was in a circular orbit. One night while working in the evening on old serial 9 testing a program for the next launch, we decided to go into the parking lot in plant 2 and look for ECHO. The guards came out and asked what we were doing, about that time ECHO appeared in the eastern sky. When we pointed it out and told them that it was one of the items that our program had put in orbit. They said they had wondered what we were doing in all the weird hours we spent in the computer room and were happy to see some real evidence of our work. Deep space probes included Explorer I - II, Pioneer. There was a classified project that allowed several people to travel to a small island in the south Pacific.
     When launches were added going west out of Vandenberg AF base they required changes to the guidance equations because they didn't get the benefit of the earths rotation. It was very difficult to fit them into the limited capability of the Athena. A great deal of creativity by the group met the expanded computational, space, timing requirements. The total of all the launches from the Cape and Vandenberg was between 200 to 300.
     Other projects included ARIS-A, ANEW, TAGM-1, TITAN II [inertial guidance using the 1824.] ANEW was the initial project to prove the viability of using a digital computer for airborne anti submarine warfare.
     We had a group at NASA GODDARD programming the 1218 to do telemetry processing for the manned space flights. I ended up managing the DSD computer center and in 1965 we had a programmer who had developed a technique to predict the end of the season standings which he wanted to automate. He programmed it to run on the 1206. The papers got interested in it so we had to schedule time to run it so they could witness it and publish the results. It early on predicted that the Twins would win the pennant, so the interest carried thru the season.
     After about ten years I moved to the avionics system engineering group where we worked closely with Lockheed.  Their shortened version of the Turbo prop Electra, which became the P-3C ASW aircraft and included our 1830 computer. Lockheed built a lab which included the fuselage without skin. The equipment was installed gradually so our software capability additions had to match the hardware schedules. Things went along well, then I received a panic call stating that our last software update was causing all the console screens to go blank. Then gradually they would come back and everything worked fine. After questioning what they were testing, they said that it was the interface to the inertial navigation system. This greatly increased the number of interrupts in the system, so we sent a programmer who had been a hardware technician (Howie Niska) who consulted with some of his friends in engineering. He created some test programs and went to California. He determined that sequenced instructions didn't terminate properly if an interrupt occurred at a certain time in the sequence and randomly jumped to an address in memory. Thus causing the program to execute instructions out of order and even try to execute data. After the 1830 was modified all problems went away. The positive item was a thorough test of the software recovery. Later we had a hard time convincing them that a programmer should be on their test flights. This would give us a chance to capture more data in the event there was a failure and possibly correct it so the test could continue. They finally agreed and several of our programmers participated in the test flights and provided the flight crew with details of some failures so they could move on to test other equipment and not just cancel the tests.
     Worked on the CSTAR task force which is an accounting/ progress tracking system to meet the Government C-Specs requirement.
I worked on the DD963 proposal to Litton, which resulted in negotiations that lasted from early Jan. to early April. I was part of the negotiating team and was attached to the program office. One day I received a call from Red Phillips. He said it was time for me to get some hardware experience, so he selected me to be the Project Engineer for the TRIDENT submarine. The Prime Contractor was Sperry Systems Management, even though they were a sister division, they were very difficult. They had more people come to review meetings than we had working on the project, and they were expert in the use of the divide and conquer technique, but we held our own.
     The next assignment I had was in the International division. First in working on an Foreign Military Sales project for the Iranian Navy, The DD993 and associated ground based Command and Control system. There were some Navy personnel from Iran in our building learning the system. We had a Berlitz teacher come in to teach Farsi in case we went to Iran. My trip was to Tehran to meet with Navy personnel on what the land based command center was. In addition while there I met the parents of the Farsi teacher and the sisters of one of the officers. This gave me some insight on the people of IRAN. I also was in a shop across from the US Embassy, so when it was over run, I recognized the street when the Embassy was shown on television.
     The last assignment was a German Air Traffic control system. This project was bid and executed through our German Commercial Marketing Division. The trips to Germany were interesting, when working on the proposal we had to get special permission to get in the building in Sulzbach to work on the weekends. There was an auto trip to Ulm which gave us a chance to see some of the country. Of course the Autobahn speeds took some getting used to.
     I transferred to the Commercial Division in Roseville in 1981 and retired from there in 1994. There is one thing that ties to my DSD experience. I was on a team that was sent to Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena to fend off a threat from DEC. JPL had an 1100 system and were going to upgrade it. We proposed our new 2200 system. They were concerned that some of their older programs wouldn't work on the new system and also were concerned with migration issues. They thought that the DEC system would be cheaper. I had just helped Bell Labs migrate to the 2200 with no problems. I presented the considerations and planning techniques used. They asked several questions about specific BTL programs, one of which I hadn't heard of but told them that if it hadn't worked I sure would have heard about it. They took us on a tour while they had time to digest what we had told them. During the tour we went through a warehouse full of tapes which had been recorded on some of our old tape units. I told them to make sure they kept some of those tape units around because they would work with the new system to read the tapes. Also DEC would have a great deal of trouble coming up with a way to read the tapes. Later we were in the observation room where VIP's have watched significant launches. Scanning down I noticed they had one of the old 1219's operating off to the side. I asked what it was doing, they said it was used to for telemetry and tracking of a deep space probe. I asked which one. Answer was Explorer, and it took 16 hours to give it a command and receive confirmation that it had been executed. When launched it wasn't planned to be operable that long or go that far. This was one my group had guided in a sling shot around the moon and into space 20 years previous.

3.3 John Hartmann

I was one of two Univac Training department instructors who served as Technical Advisors to Navy Schools Command Mare Island - Vallejo, California, when the Navy opened their computer school for the DS Rate. Larry Dean was the other Univac Instructor assigned to Mare Island. We both arrived at Mare Island in mid July, 1962 for what was supposed to be a 1 year assignment for each of us however, Larry was recalled to St. Paul after 9 months at Mare Island and my assignment was extended by 3 months, so I spent 15 months at Mare Island, from July 1962 thru early November 1963. The Navy does not pay contractors for vacation time or time spent in St. Paul to teach special classes therefore actual time for the assignment is slightly longer than 15 months. This is just a short introduction the full story will take me a while to formulate and should be a bit more interesting and informative. That's it for now.

3.4 Al Heiden, 1978-1989

    I ran across the site recently. I worked at Plant 1 from 1978 to 1989. It was my first job after getting my BSEE. I did some work on AN/UYK-43 and 44 among others. It brings back some memories for me. Thanks for the interesting site.
I used to work in a group at plant 1 called PC Test Engineering. Our task was to obtain the PC board net-lists for a particular project such as UYK-44 and also simulation models for the Integrated Circuits on the boards. Then we would write stimulus vectors to exercise the circuits with a simulator called INDICATES. This was usually fairy tedious and time consuming and required a fair understanding of the logic on the board. When completed the output of the tool could be translated to a test system on the factory floor to test the product.
     This was all done using software tools on the Sperry 1108 Mainframe in the computer center downstairs at Plant 8.
PC Test Engineering was part of Quality Assurance and was run by Harold Pierson. My interview with Sperry-Univac as it was called in 1978 was with Warren L. Meyers, Roy Owens, Dick Fosmer, Warren Beers, John Buck, Mike Kramer, and Dallas Fogg. Warren Meyers managed test engineering. Roy Owens ran R&I (Receiving and Inspection). Warren Beers was supervisor of Power Supply Test, John Buck was supervisor of Memory Test, Dick Fosmer was supervisor of PC Test. All of the test supervisors reported to Warren Meyers. The 1978 org chart that I have in my head might be fading but I think the descriptions above are hopefully accurate.
     I remember many people at both plant 1 and plant 8 but only stay in touch with a few. I left in 1989 to work at Cardiac Pacemakers in Arden Hills. As time passed some of the people in the old Sperry group joined me up there. The skills many of us had were a fairly good fit for the medical Industry.
     Presently I am part of a test group for National Semiconductor and live in Phoenix.

3.5 Ralph Hileman (ERA 1955-196x)

    I was with a number of Lockheed Martin people (John Samuelson, Craig Meyer, Joe Bulger) during September '07 in San Diego at a LockMart Small Business Conference. We talked about the old days, my ERA badge that I still have [I joined the company in 1955.] My present Consultant 'resume' is as follows:

  • Type Of Business: Consulting, New Technologies and Network Applications, Command and Control Systems, Business Development for Military Uses
  • Marketing Area: Global Management Consulting, Project Management, Test and Training Systems, Architectures for Multimedia Networks and Command and Control Systems, Battle Force Operational Needs and Scenarios, Business Development, System Engineering for Real Time Issues in Networks for Command & Control Including Communications, Technical Support, Test, Training and Performance Monitoring Systems
  • Hobbies/Sports: Amateur Radio K6HD, Photography, Hiking
  • Education: Masters Degree in Business Administration, UCLA; Bachelors Degree in Physics from the University of Michigan Affiliations and Awards: Life Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Chair Los Angeles Area Consulting Network; American Society of Naval Engineers; Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association; AIAA; National Defense Industrial Association; Fellow, Institute for Advancement of Engineering; Several Articles Published; Public Speaking, Locally and Nationally
  • Work History: Consulting for companies such as Lockheed Martin, Naval Sea Systems Command, Raytheon, Digital systems Research, General Dynamics, Etc.; VP Business Development, Diagnostic Retrieval Systems of California; Program Manager, Litton Data Systems; Program Director, UNISYS (now Lockheed Martin)
  • Career Achievements: Co-Authored Patent for First Digital Computer Navy Combat System (NTDS); Program Manager, Combat System for LHA-1, First Large Deck Carrier for US Marine Corps; Program Manager, First Test, Training and Performance Monitoring System for DDG-993; Past Chair, Alliance of IEEE Consulting Networks National Coordinating Committee, Past Chair, Los Angeles Area Consulting Network, Chair, Orange County Consulting Network.

3.6 Kevin Hoffman, 1976 -

I started work at Univac on December 13, 1976. The project I worked on was for four destroyers to be sold to Iran. Just after we had finished certifying the software at our test lab in St. Paul, Iran underwent the revolution that ousted the Shah and led to the seizure of the employees of the U.S. embassy in Tehran as hostages. The contract to sell the ships to Iran was quickly canceled. However, since the ships were very capable and largely completed, the U.S. Navy decided to complete the ships and commission them in the U.S. Navy. They planned to write a new U.S. version of the command and control system software based on the CGN-38 combat system. This, however would not be ready in time to support the final contract trials for the ship, so the decision was made to use the program we had certified to support the shipyard testing and sea trials in order to certify the correct operation of all the equipment and systems.
The command and control software was written in the CMS-2 language and ran on a 4 bay UYK-7 computer. It had two processors and ran under the standard operating system for the UYK-7.
Building a system
     In those days, we wrote our code on paper coding sheets which we submitted to have punched onto 80 column cards by the data entry crew. The first 11 columns were reserved for sequence numbers. These were needed so that the program could be kept in order since a card deck could be dropped and mixed up or re-shuffled, (a service which the card reader sometimes performed for you without your consent). This is no longer an issue today, since software is entered into computer files, and each line of code stays in the proper location in the file. Because of this, newer computer languages do not provide for sequence numbers.
     The program was divided up into modules, each of which could be compiled separately. To compile, the deck of punched cards would be taken over to plant 8 and placed in an in-box for the data processing center. The data processing center would, process each job by loading the card deck into the 1100 computer and running the compiler. This produced a listing of the program and a listing of all the compile errors. This could be picked up the next day. If there were compile errors, new cards would be punched to make the corrections to the deck and then resubmit the compile. When the module was free of compile errors a map listing would be printed, because it was needed for debugging. Then a job would be submitted to build a new system tape. This also was done at Plant 8, so someone would need to drive over to pick up the tape.
Magnetic Tape
     In those days, disk drives existed, but they were very expensive, with very limited capacity, so all of our applications software was saved on large, reel-to-reel magnetic tapes. Each tape was assigned a tape location. When you wanted a tape mounted, you would send a command from a remote terminal to the operator’s system console to request that the tape be mounted. You had to wait for the console operator to respond before you could proceed with reading your tape into memory. Programmers often would keep a cabinet full of tapes at their desk. Tapes were a bit fickle and would typically work a few times but would often get stretched when the tape was pulled into the drive vacuum. You then would have to unwind tape until you got to a good section and cut the bad section off.

Debugging
     The debugger was simply another module, which was compiled as part of the combat system. There was no symbolic debugging. When you wanted to know the contents of a memory location, you had to compute the address from the map and compile listing. Since the program ran in real time, you could not use break points unless you really wanted to stop the entire system. Instead we had snaps. A snap would be set at a specific address and could be set up to dump the contents of registers and memory locations to the screen.

Patching
     In those days, once a program was certified, we were no longer allowed to recompile the software, so all changes had to be written in the form of machine code patches. We would then write a patch file to magnetic tape, using a utility program we would load instead of the combat system. This patched version of the program could then be loaded and would contain all the patches applied since the last compile of the software. Care had to be taken when applying the patches so that the code being patched could not be executed until the complete patch was in place, otherwise the program would crash. Each software module had an area of unused memory mapped that could be used for entering patches. The basic technique was to write the patch and then change the instruction in the program to jump to the patch. The last instruction in the patch was normally a jump back to the next instruction after where the jump to patch had been done. The instruction which was changed to the jump to patch had to be restored as part of the patch. The patch had to be entered while the program was running and had to work the first time or the program would crash. If the patch area was not large enough, it could be expanded, but this had to be done off line with a utility program and then a new system tape had to be written. Because of this, if the patch area was full and our online fix had to be made quickly, the programmer would disable some function that was not needed for the current testing and then use that functions processing as a patch area.

Shipyard
     I spent 2 years on site in Pascagoula Mississippi, supporting the completion and certification of the ships. I was assigned a desk in an old trailer house. It had no air-conditioning. The desks were old wooden desks with writing carved all over in them with dial telephones. It had two doors. My desk was next to the side door. It had a screen door that was always covered in flies. Any papers or program listings on my desk had to be weighted down or the wind coming through the trailer would fan through them and blow them all over the trailer. The roof leaked when it rained. Because of this, I did little work at my desk, preferring the data processing center on one of the ships. Later they moved us to the top floor in a warehouse. This was worse, with the temperature being well over one hundred degrees. The only way in was a fire escape on the outside of the building.
     In the shipyard, there were huge gantries on huge rails for lifting and moving sections of ships. The ship was largely constructed on land. Rickety scaffolding was set up that we had to climb to get on board the ship. Once on board, I had to take care to step around power cables, tools and equipment. There would be people working everywhere, welding, grinding, painting, cutting, etc. Powering up and testing of equipment that moved, such as launchers and radars, had to be scheduled, and safety corridors blocked off to prevent injuring someone.
     The shipyard was built on two sides of the Pascagoula River. Once the ships were floated they could be docked on either side of the river. To get from one side to the other there was a shipyard shuttle that consisted of a raft with a motor on it.

Paper Tapes
     An alternative to the card deck was the paper tape, which had the advantage that your program could not get out of order since the tape contained the entire program. However, that meant that adding or deleting statements required re-punching the entire tape. I remember a case where I was at sea supporting the final contract trials for the USS Kidd, and I had an important patch to the software punched onto paper tape which I needed to load into the program in order to run one of the sea trial tests. Without the patch the test would fail. The paper tape readers on the DEAC consoles were notorious for ‘eating’ paper tapes and this particular DEAC showed a voracious appetite that day, mangling and tearing the tape in several places. The DEAC key entry system was an amazing mechanical wonder designed by some true genius. However it was very slow, with a printing speed of maybe one second per character. I did not have time before the test was to be run to re-punch the patch into the program as it was rather lengthy. While the field engineer worked on adjusting and cleaning the paper tape reader, I salvaged what I could of the paper tape patch and cut the bad portions of the tape out. I then taped the pieces together with the right amount of blank paper tape for the damaged areas of the tape. I analyzed the holes on the tape to determine where the patch had been damaged and, then, using tools from the field engineers toolkit, cut holes in the paper tape manually to fill in the missing code. We then crossed our fingers and tried to read the patch into the computer, and at the same time punch out a clean new paper tape. Luck was with us, and it worked so we were able to run the test, which passed.

Radar Alignment
     During the sea trials for the USS Kidd an issue came up with the radar alignment tests. This series of tests required a military fighter jet to fly a fixed route during the alignment tests. The alignment data was collected during the test, and had to then be printed out before the next test was started; otherwise the data would be lost, since in those days there was no way for the program to save any data on a disk. The software had been programmed to print the test results on the DEAC. Since this was very slow, it took a several minutes to print the test results. In this time the aircraft would fly out of position, and then there would be a delay while the ship testers waited for the aircraft to get into position to run the next test. Eventually, the aircraft would get low on fuel and have to return to base. Then another aircraft would take is place to continue the tests. The result was that these tests took several hours to complete. There was also a line printer on the USS Kidd which was much faster than the DEAC, but the programming to send the test results to this printer did not exist. The supervisor asked me if it would be possible to write a patch to send the test results to the line printer. Since the version of the program I was supporting was only being used to certify the ship, I was authorized to make changes needed to support ship sea trials. There were some unused programmable function keys on the System Maintenance Console. I chose one of them and programmed it to direct the radar alignment test results to the line printer. I did this before the sea trial for the next ship and had it all installed and ready to use when we left port. When they got to the radar alignment test, they were able to finish all of the tests in one pass of the aircraft, since now it only took seconds to print the alignment results and they could go right on to the next test. The Navy and shipbuilder were extremely pleased with this as it saved them time and money.

Satellite Navigation
     In the years before GPS there was a satellite navigation system, but it worked completely differently from the newer GPS system. In the GPS system the satellites are in stationary orbits so that they stay over the same location on the earth. To get a position fix you only need to receive the signal from two or three satellites and then you can obtain your position by triangulation. In the old transit satellite system, the satellites were in orbit. A series of ground stations at known fixed locations would monitor the satellites as they passed over and re-compute the satellite’s orbit based on the doppler shift in the signals received from the satellite as it passed over. This data was then transmitted up to the satellite. In order for a ship at sea to obtain a position fix it needed to simultaneously collect data from three satellites which had to each be at least a minimum height over the horizon for at least two minutes. Once the data was collected the fix was computed using the compliment of the equations used to compute the satellite's position by the ground stations. In theory, an opportunity would occur anywhere between 45 minutes to 6 hours, depending on the orbits and the ship's location.
     The actual success rate was much worse due to some software deficiencies. The first problem was that the common routines used to compute the satellite fix had not been written to be re-entrant. A background thread which gathered the satellite data called the same common routines that the user interface called. Therefore, any operator entry on the DEAC while a satellite data collection was in progress, could cause the program to hang up, since the program would return to the place the user interface called it from rather than the place the background thread called it from, and the thread would never finish the fix computation.
     Another problem was that the software had been written to monitor the ships course and speed. If a change in speed or heading was detected during the data collection, the fix computation was aborted and the data discarded. My experience was that surface Navy ships seldom maintained a constant speed and heading for long periods of time. In analyzing the software, I found that the software saved the ship’s position at the time communications with the satellite was established. After the data collection was completed, the software would compute the ship’s position at a series of fixed time intervals based on the speed and heading of the ship at the time the initial position had been saved. I proposed that instead of dead reckoning the positions to fill in the table, the ships actual position be saved at each time interval. It would then be possible to obtain a fix even during maneuvers. I then contacted Navy personnel and mathematicians familiar with the satellite system, and they endorsed this solution. Chuck Peterson and I then worked on the corrections to these problems at the METC test center in St. Paul. The problem was that we could not test our corrections there, because the center had no satellite receiver, and the only simulated satellite data we had was for a fixed location with no speed or heading. Nevertheless, we carefully built a system tape with these changes, which were complex and extensive. The fourth ship in the class (USS Calaghan) was to make a run up to Long Beach and then back to San Diego for some tests, and we were cleared to install our fixes, and test our fixes, as this fix was identified as a priority for the Navy. Our flight to San Diego was late, so when we landed, we drove directly to the Navy base. By the time we got through security procedures the ship was ready to pull away from the dock. They were waiting for me. I went directly on board, and Chuck took our things to the hotel we had booked. We were at sea for two days. During this time I did not sleep but stayed with the computer so that I would not miss any satellite fix opportunities. On the first two satellite passes, I discovered some additional problems and also had to make some adjustments to the patch. By the time we returned to port I was satisfied that everything was working properly and we were routinely getting good satellite fixes, which I verified by comparing this to the ship’s navigator’s independent calculations.
    After getting a good night's sleep Chuck and I returned to the ship and built a tape with all the corrections on it and left it with the ship's CIC officer. We relayed everything we had done and learned to the ship’s navigation officer who would be responsible for following through with further testing. In the evening, we had just come up on deck with the intent of leaving the ship when the Captain called a fire drill. An armed seaman intercepted us and held us under arrest, his orders being not to allow anyone to leave the ship during the fire drill. After the fire drill we were released from custody and allowed to depart from the ship.
     A couple of weeks after we returned to St. Paul, the USS Callaghan made a trip from San Diego to Pascagoula, Mississippi. I contacted the ship’s navigator to find out how the satellite navigation system had performed during the trip. He was very happy with the performance and stated that the program had produced a satellite fix for each possible fix opportunity and that the positions were right on every time. We provided the patch to the Sperry TSD group working on the U.S. version of the software for the ships, but never received any information that they had actually implemented the corrections.

User Interface
     The user interface was command line oriented at that time. A menu would be presented to the operator by listing each menu selection, with a number next to it. The operator would make a menu selection by entering the number corresponding to the menu selection. I added code so that the operator could simply move the cursor to the line he wanted to select and then press a fixed function key to make the selection. In retrospect, this was an early migration toward a GUI interface, although nobody called it that at the time.
     Maintenance tests were entered as long, cryptic entries entered from the DEAC. There was no online help. Leading zeroes, commas and blanks were required to be entered, you could not skip fields. The entries with all fields were often 50 to 80 characters long. If any error was made anywhere in the string, the operator simply received a response on the DEAC of “ILLEGAL ENTRY”. Programmers who memorized these long entries and were able to get them right looked like geniuses, but this was not user friendly for the seamen who had to use the tests, even if they knew exactly what they wanted to do. Over the years, I have promoted a move toward self-explanatory error messages in the new systems we build. Surprisingly the cryptic “ILLEGAL ENTRY” has survived and is still an issue in new systems.
     There were two system maintenance consoles as part of the system. When a page was displayed on one station, it could not be displayed on the other one. This software restriction was carried through to even the table of contents pages. In the test center this was not a problem because the two consoles were located in adjacent rooms. On the ship one was in the data processing center and the other in the CIC. To get from one to the other one had to climb several ladders. This meant you had to call up the other center to ask someone to change the page, so you could get to the page you wanted. If there was no one there you had to run up yourself to change the page. This was also complicated by the security procedures that required that the rooms be padlocked when no one was in them. I patched the program so that the table of contents pages could be displayed simultaneously at both SMC stations. This saved a lot of trouble.

CG 26
     In the late '70s the USS Belknap was involved in a collision with an aircraft carrier. As part of the repairs, the command and control system was upgraded. This upgrade work was being done in Virginia. When our contract for the DDG-993 was cancelled, there was a time gap between when the U.S. Navy bridge contract got into place. I was sent on my first business trip to Dam Neck, Virginia, to help on the CG-26. I was very apprehensive, wondering what good I could possibly do. This was only the second airline flight of my life and I had never seen an ocean before or eaten seafood. Will Pearson met me at the airport and that evening we were having seafood at the Hilton restaurant. The next day at work I quickly found out that the CG-26 had the same CGN-38 program baseline that we had started with for the Iranian program. There were several hundred open problem reports against the CG-26 program. I quickly discovered that nearly all of them had been issues we had solved over that past couple of years in our program. As a result, I was able to solve many problems for this project in a relatively short time, simply by remembering what we had done to solve the problem previously. Kevin Hoffmann

3.7 Jim Hyslop, 39 1/3 years of service.

    On a day of the last week of November, 1956, I went to interview for a job with a company named Remington Rand UNIVAC. The personnel office for said company was on Minnehaha Ave between Fairview and Prior Aves, south side of the street. It was located in the Guard Shack for Plant 2. I interviewed with a fellow named Roy Jampsa. I was interviewing for a position as an electronics technician using the training and experience gained during 3 years in the US Army diagnosing and repairing problems in the Acquisition and Tracking Radars and the electronic analog computer of the M-33 Integrated Fire Control System. While waiting for the interview another fellow came in and sat down. He looked familiar so I began talking to him. His name was/is Jack Reid. He had been my instructor at Ft. Monmouth, NJ in about my 18th week of training there in 1954. Small world!
     After speaking with Roy and taking a proficiency test, I was directed to RRU's new facility on Shepard Road and W. 7th St. to interview with Vern Leas. I was subsequently hired and began my first day of 39 years and 4 months on Monday, December 3, 1956. I believe I was told that Plant 1 had opened for occupancy in late Sept., or early October.
About Jack Reid: Just as an aside, I thought you might be interested in a little more of Jack Reid's background. First, he was a great teacher for the week we had him. Of all the instructors that I had over 42 weeks of training, [24 at Ft. Monmouth, NJ and 18 at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD] he was the only one who's name I could remember. He was drafted into the Army and because of his background was sent to school to learn how to trouble shoot and repair a Sperry designed fire control system called the T38 Skysweeper.
     Basically it was a 75mm gun with a combination Acquisition/Tracking radar on the left side of the mount and our electro-mechanical analog computer on the right side. It could fire one 75mm round every second and was very accurate for maybe the first 4 or 5 seconds. Then the effects from firing; i.e., concussion and vibration knocked the computer out of alignment. In 1956 when I was stationed at Misawa AFB, there was a battalion of Skysweepers guarding the base in addition to the battalion of M33s that I supported. It was interesting to watch the T38s at the firing range [out over the Pacific.] A B-26 would fly by towing a target sleeve. A T38 would open fire, the first round would put a hole in the sleeve - the second would blow apart the knuckle that held the sleeve to the tow cable and then before the crew shut it down it would start tracking up the cable shooting chunks off of it.
     Anyhow, after Jack finished school, he got shanghaied to Iceland for a year. When his year was up he was sent back to the states. He only had a few months left and thought/hoped he would be discharged. He wasn't and instead was sent to Ft. Monmouth to instruct for his remaining time. Not a happy camper. The first day he strolled into class, he was in a Khaki class A uniform minus the tie. He walked up to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, wrote his name and the class title and then in large letters below, scrawled out "I hate this bleeping [or something comparable] Army!" We got along fine with him and learned a lot. I was happy I didn't have to work on that system though. That computer would have driven anyone nuts.
     He was/is a great guy although I don't remember having had much contact with him at Plant 1. I left there at the end of 1967 and started work in commercial. I don't have any idea of what became of him. Jim

3.8 Paul Hove

SUMMARY: Experienced technical manager with 20 years in lead management positions for a large defense contractor. History of developing effective field service organizations, resulting in strong and consistent customer satisfaction. Record of building strong technical teams through motivation, responding to project needs and respected professional skills.

EXPERIENCES: 2004-Present, Built RV-7A kit airplane. Finished building Lake Home in McGregor, MN.

1994-2004 Paul.Hove Computers Inc. Formed company to provide specialized network consulting services to Windows NT File Server users. Won a major contract with Guidant Corporation to provide departmental network services. Provided Hardware and Network services to several smaller clients including Urometrics Corporation and Resource Inc.

1993-1994: CIOP Computers Inc. Formed a computer consulting company with two other partners to provide File Servers and Accounting software to mid size companies. Won multiyear contract to install and manage Minnesota Brewing Company computer and accounting system. Left partnership to form a new computer services company

1991 TO 1993: A AERO, LAKE ELMO AIRPORT, MN An aircraft service business formed in 1991 to provide maintenance, salvage and repair services for General Aviation Aircraft. Director of Maintenance responsible for the scheduling of maintenance at the repair facility and preparation of the FAA required documentation of repair work. Designed and automated the 100 hour/annual checklists, 337 forms and the accounting system for the business. Bid and won several aircraft salvage contracts from major aircraft insurance companies. Worked on several restoration projects.

1965 TO 1991 UNISYS CORPORATION BLUE BELL, PA In 1986, Burroughs merged with Sperry to create Unisys, a fortune 20 manufacturer of data processing equipment, with revenues of $10 billion and 90,000 employees worldwide.
Program Director. SOO-89 Programs, Computer, Systems Div. ST. PAUL, MN 1987 TO 1991. Assigned by Director of Navy Systems to acquire an ASW Combat System role for Unisys on Navy's major surface ASW program. Competitively selected by General Electric to be the Data Processing Supplier for the SQQ-89 Improved System, value to Unisys at $1 billion over next 20 years.
Created 6 proposals, with GE selecting 5, in response to request for quote for build-to-print hardware on SQQ-89 Basic System. Gained approval and managed $1.5 million Internal Research and Development project to simulate and analyze the data processing requirements for SQQ-89 Improved System.
Developed Surface Navy Systems 5-year strategic plan as member of 5-person Business Area Team.

1984-1987 Director, Sperry Surface Systems Engineering St. Paul, MN Recruited for position to take advantage of engineering and administrative skills. Organizationally responsible for 45 Technical Directors, Project Managers and System Engineers in large matrix organization. Reported to and assumed responsibilities of Vice President of Navy Systems Engineering in his absence. Frequently interfaced directly with various Navy customers and numerous subcontractors. Chaired Subcontract Management Task Force.
Effectively managed technical engineering assets at 3 sites, consistently meeting overhead and project budgets.
Edited and directed publication of Subcontract Management Policies and Procedures Manual, still being used by Computer Systems Division.

 1979-1984Field Engineering Group Manager, Major Systems, Univac. St. Paul Promoted to motivate young, technical, independent and mobile work force and concurrently operate within confines of business plans. Managed staff of 80, organizing Group into 3 areas: Air Force, Army and Civilian Agencies, and Overseas Operations. Accountable for assuring timely integration, proper maintenance and support, customer satisfaction, and prompt resolution of problems associated with performance of Univac computer systems in customer facilities. Consistently obtained renewal of annual maintenance contracts resulting from customer's satisfaction with performance. Succeeded in gaining a $15 million 5-year renewal for from Sunnyvale Satellite Control Facility for Remote Tracking Stations. We achieved 99% system availability during 5-year contract period, guaranteeing maximum award fee.
1977-1979 Principal Account Representative, Univac Navy Marketing. St. Paul MN - Requested to be assigned to Navy Marketing when Customer Services was split among Univac's 4 newly organized divisions. Responsible for new business development in Electronic Warfare, Communications and MIS application areas. Reported to Director of Marketing. Sold classified development program to the U.S. Navy for a passive Automatic Direction Finding System, currently worth $20 million in sales from numerous contract extensions.

1965-1977 Field Engineer Manager. Univac Customer Services. St. Paul MN - Hired as Associate Field Engineer, promoted to Field Engineer in 1967 and Manager in 1975. Made 5 major relocations in the first years, providing shipboard installation and maintenance of Univac products for the U.S. Navy. Assigned to St. Paul in 1970 with supervisory and management responsibilities for Field Engineering services.

Increased business and grew field engineering staff from 8 to 80 in 7-year period by providing superior services to the Navy. Received several Letters of Commendation from Navy for work well done.

EDUCATION: MBA, The College of St. Thomas, 1983
BEE, University of Minnesota, 1965 Institute of Technology
Naval Graduate School, 1978 - Electronic Warfare - 6 Credits
American University 1967-1968 - Computer Sciences – 9 Graduate Credits

3.9 Carl Halverson (1973-2011)

Carl's mini-bio is a downloadable file.

3.10 Merton Horne (1974-2009)

When I joined Sperry in 1974 I worked in the seed group that became Sperry Semiconductor, an organization seperated from the Defense Systems Division (DSD), reference  https://vipclubmn.org/Articles/UnivacSemiconductorPaper.pdf

One of our products was MNOS, I was the design engineer of the SU 110 and then the SU 810, the latter used in the Navy’s Flight Data Recorder replacement. I was granted three patents for the 810 design. 

I was always working in the trenches until the 1987 shutdown after the Burroughs bought Sperry. Then I managed the transfer of our entire bipolar family of products to Raytheon in Mountain View, CA.  

After that I moved to DSD to manage part of the carved out B2 program, B-2StealthBomberStory.pdf (vipclubmn.org).

I retired in 2009, my last 10 years managing high tech programs and finally managing an organization of about 32 engineers. 

 

In this Chapter

Topical Article Contributions [left]

Career Summaries - G:

Career Summaries - H:

Chapter 13 edited 8/26/2024.