La Salle Magazine Fall 1994 La Salle University
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La Salle University La Salle University Digital Commons La Salle Magazine University Publications Fall 1994 La Salle Magazine Fall 1994 La Salle University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/lasalle_magazine Recommended Citation La Salle University, "La Salle Magazine Fall 1994" (1994). La Salle Magazine. 58. http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/lasalle_magazine/58 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in La Salle Magazine by an authorized administrator of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FALL 1994 'JtF Wjijmfl' ^*' '"" *i„ fl ******* w^P '•Mr iV"^T* i ft 1 HONOR 41 ROLL OF DONORS Leon Ellerson, '56 President Keystone Computer Associates, Inc. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from LYRASIS members and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/lasalle171973unse Historic Educatu null . Igreement, Page 5 ; (m^y \ Developing COMPUTING AT KEYSTONE ( orporate leaders, Page 61 Leon Ellerson has parlayed a mathematics degree into a successful career as head of one of the region's leading software and consulting companies. HONOR ROLL OF DONORS £t ^^"TjWB 1993-94 was indeed an exceptionally challenging and yet rewarding year for the university and its fund-raising program. um ' 4 i AROUND CAMPUS Seminar on Shakespeare, Page La Salle introduced a unique partnership with Bucks County Comnuinity College and mourned the death of Brother Joseph Roben S. Lyons, Jr., '61, Editor Bender, a long-time counselor in the School James J. McDonald, '58, Alumni Director of Continuing Studies. AM MNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS Maria Tucker Ciisuk. '83, President Joseph H. Goran, '61, Executive Vice President ALUMNI NOTES Nicholas Lisi, Esq., '62, Vice President J. A profile on an executive who is on a dual James M. Boligitz. '83, Treasurer mission in California as well as the quarterly Elizabeth R Lochner, '87, Secretary chronicle of some significant events in the 1 si's lives of La Salle's alumni. LASALLI 1 299 940) is published quarterly by La Salle University, 1900 \\ Olnej Wenue, Philadelphia, PA 191 U-1199, for the alumni, students, fai ulty, and friends of the University Editorial and business offices are located at the News Bureau, La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA 191 11 1 199 Changes ol address should be sent at least 30 days prioi i" publication ol issue with which it is to t.ike i ti < e£fe< i the Uumni iffice, La Salle University, 1900 VK Olnej Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19141-1199 isi \s[ P( \i ik send < hange i il address to i iffice listed above. Membei ol the ( ouncil lor the Advancement and '< Suppi hi i .1 I dui atii 'ii \sE). DESIGN AND ILL1 STRATION Blake+Barancik Design ill' 'i- " IF \\'\\\ Kelly & Massa Volume 38 / Number 4 LA SALLE FALL 1994 ____^_ ^fe _ hen Leon Ellerson, '56, graduated from La Salle Leo)i Ellerson at his desk with a bachelor's degree in His company. Keystone mathematics, he faced a major Compute}' Associates, decision: should he go to work Inc., has been honored in the new, relatively unex- twice its for growth and plored space industry' or should success by the Small he try his hand at the equally-fascinating, but unknown Business Administration computer field? Ellerson chose the latter. He accepted an offer from Leon Ellerson had never Remington-Rand UNIVAC (now known as Unisys) and found himself working alongside the two inventors of heard of computers when the computer-John Mauchly and John Eckert. Within a decade, he was a minor partner of an emerging soft- he graduated from La Salle. ware sen ices company. Keystone Computer Associates. Inc. Ten years later he was running the company and Now he's one of the today that firm is one of the leading software and consulting companies on the east coast with some 180 industry's top experts employees and offices in suburban Philadelphia. Man- land, and Virginia. FALL 1994 page 1 "It was really a big shock to all of us that we knew early in the evening that Eisenhower was going to win big." "I made the right choice," recalled Naval Air Warfare Center in GE that would have placed him in Ellerson recently at his corporate Warminster, Pa., is moving most of the space industry. "I had never headquarters located in Fort Wash- its operation to Patuxent River, even heard of computers before I ington, Pa. "It was the most excit- Md., and Ellerson sees his company interviewed at LINIVAC," he says. "I ing time to be working with com- moving more aggressively into the didn't understand the job at puters and I was fortunate to be commercial/ civilian area in the UNIVAC, but I really liked the with some of the brightest people near future. "Right now we are people who interviewed me." I've ever met. If I had stayed in the about 80% government," he says. Moreover, Ellerson had no idea that space industry, I would have been "We see that going down to under he would be working with the two sort of an average person in middle 50% in the next two or three pioneers of the computer industry. management right now at a com- years." pany like GE or Martin-Marietta." During World War II, John Ellerson graduated from Central Mauchly, a professor at the Univer- Instead, Ellerson has emerged as High School and transferred to sity of Pennsylvania, and John ( >ne of the most respected entrepre- La Salle after attending Temple for Eckert, an electronics engineer, had neurs in the computer industry. His two years where, as he puts it, his been asked by the U.S. Army to company has been honored twice academic record was less than develop a quicker method for for its growth and success by the spectacular. "I was amazed how computing artillery firing tables. Small Business Administration and readily La Salle accepted me." he Their research resulted in the first he was selected as the Philadelphia recalled, "especially being a minor- electronic computer. Known as district's 'Small Business Person of ity in the 1950s. In the years to ENIAC (Electronic Numerical the , ar" in 1978. come, 1 really felt beholden to La Integrator and Calculator), it was Salle because of that. Sometimes built at Perm in 1945 using Keystone deals primarily in govern- you forget these things, but when I punched cards for input and output ment defense work-specializing in think back, it really changed my data. anti-submarine warfare—but expects life." to be downsizing its military in- By 1951, Mauchly and Eckert were volvement significantly in the next After graduating. Ellerson chose a producing the first of a famous few years. Its largest client, the U.S. job at UNIVAC over a position at series of computers—the UNIVACS-- page LA SALLE ) Ellerson was profoundly moral when he received the 1991 Warren Smith, M.D. Award given annually by La Salle's African American students. which used magnetic tape for its dential election. "It was interesting with John Guernaccini, his friend data and provided the basic ideas because we worked long hours and co-worker at UNIVAC. Two behind the design of the modern using a lot of techniques," he says. years later, when the Ford Motor computer. Ellerson ended up "It was really a big shock to all of Co. purchased Philco, the hand- working for Mauchly, who headed us that we knew early in the writing was on the wall that the up a 30 person programming evening that Eisenhower was going new Philco-Ford was not going to group. Eckeit ran an engineering to win big. And nobody believed remain in the computer business. group. that." The TV network (Ellerson With Guernaccini as majority doesn't recall which one) that stockholder, Ellerson and two "When I graduated from La Salle. I contracted to use UNIVAC's projec- others formed Keystone Computer had never heard of John Mauchly," tions was so skeptical that it de- Associates in 1965. Except for a says Ellerson, who 'recalls that clined to broadcast them. Another seven year period from 1967 to Mauchly was primarily interested in network that was running a 1975 when the company was developing computers to help Remington Rand electric shaver owned by University Computing predict the weather. "Actually it commercial did cany UNIVAC's Co., a Dallas, Texas-based comput- was a while before I knew how bold prediction, however. ing company. Keystone has flour- important he really was. He was ished on its own. "We've aKvays just a boss. Actually I worked very Ellerson left UNIVAC and went to grown very slowly. We've never closely with him. He was very work as manager of the computer over-expandeel," says Ellerson. "We accessible." (Years later. Ellerson operating system—what we know liked the fact that we were inde- learned that one of his math pro- today as "MS-DOS" on PCs was pendent, safe, and secure." fessors at La Salle, the late Brother then called "Executive Systems"— at Damian Connelly, had worked at the Philco Corporation in 1963. His Ellerson has since relinquished the University of Pennsylvania with team also experimented with a most of the day-to-day operation at Mauchly and Eckert. prototype of a "time-sharing" Keystone to Guernaccini and system, similar to "Client Server" or executive vice president Ken In 1956, Ellerson's first program- "Windows" systems used to maxi- Clancy, another veteran from ming task involved a computerized mize time available inside a com- UNIVAC, while devoting much of his attempt to predict a national presi- puter today.