Ed Manderfield started the program by presenting an award of appreciation to our outgoing Chairman, Paul Schmidt. This was followed by Lee Schmidt who provided the welcoming speech for the award ceremony. Lee mentioned that he was ending his term as Past Chair of the LA Chapter. He suggested that the audience should focus on their first computer. He said that SEAC was an early computer at the Bureau of Standards that employees there enjoyed working on it so much that they were almost embarrassed to get paid for it. Two of tonight’s honorees. Ben Handy and Sol Pollack, had worked at the Bureau of Standards. 40 years ago the DATA-LINK used to write an article every time a company received a new computer. Lee suggested that members of ACM who remembered their first computer should send in the details to “THE DATA-LINK”.

Lee introduced Frank Wagner to present the award to Walter Bauer. Frank said that early in the 1950’s there was no such thing as ACM in Los Angeles. DCA, the Digital Computer Association, was started without help from ACM and was quite a hot bed of innovation. He said that Walter Bauer was hired by Simon Ramo to show other employees how computing was to be done, which was definitely an awkward situation. He met with them and said “I don’t know how to run a computing center. How would you run a computing center?” which started things out with mutual cooperation. Walter Bauer started the first Council of the LA Chapter of ACM and the first election was held in 1956. The Council established a number of innovative things, using DCA as a model. Stimulated by Walt, they scheduled a monthly meeting every month with a dinner meeting that started with a happy hour and ended with a sound, technical talk. The Chapter started “THE DATA-LINK” with lots of news and rumor, had 1 day technical sessions, and assigned ACM reps to every computer organization. The Chapter established Special Interest Groups (SIG)s. ACM meetings sometimes were considered dull, so to improve things LA was the first host to hold a national ACM meeting in a hotel. The LA ACM Chapter of ACM prospered and increased from 524 paid members to 1,450 members in 1963. Where are they now? All of the good things that happened to the LA Chapter would not have happened without the innovation and vision of Walter Bauer. Frank presented the award to Walter Bauer.

Walter Bauer said that one of his idols was Simon Ramo and that he had once introduced him at great length. Ramo said it seemed a shame to interrupt that introduction with his speech. Walter said he has heard there are some backward countries that are still playing chess by hand. He said that as far as starting LA ACM, that without Frank Wagner it wouldn’t have happened. As to the lifetime awards, he asked “Doesn’t the Chapter have better things to do?” but it is kind of nice. Computing was fun and easy, in a sense, and they knew it was one hell of a field. In those days IBM believed that 16 701’s would be able to handle all the world’s computing requirements forever. Walter thanked the Chapter for the award and for remembering him and the 50’s.

Gloria Silvern, a former Chapter Chair back in the 1970’s, introduced Ben Handy. Gloria said in remembrance of DCA she still has a collection of corks. Ben Handy grew up in Boston, was working on a PhD at MIT and got side tracked. In 1952 he became involved with the SWAC computer at UCLA. and Gloria met him at Litton System. He was the Vice-Chair of the LA Chapter of ACM from 58-60 and the Chair from 60-62. Ben chaired the first national ACM convention in Los Angeles. He made a big contribution by starting Special Interest Committees (SICs) and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and became the Southern California ACM Representative. After working at Litton he went on to IBM and worked there till he retired. He has had heart attacks and has a defibrillator in his chest. Gloria presented the LA Chapter lifetime award to Ben.

Ben said he wasn’t going to speak too long. The early days of computing was a seminal time. He worked on the ENIAC at University of Pennsylvania and the SEAC. The SEAC used the Von Neumann model of computer design and used mercury delay lines. Then they were thinking about seconds and milliseconds whereas today even nano-seconds are slow. He spent time working on the Whirlwind at MIT and the SWAC at UCLA. He worked at IBM and got involved with AWACS. Things have evolved with time and he had 3 heart attacks. The last one was a cardiac arrest in a bar. The man on the next bar stool was a cardiologist and saved his life. Ben said if that had happened while he was at home he would have died, so you should not stay home.

Arnold Goodman spoke about the distinguished career of Sol Pollack. He was at the National Bureau of Standards when the SEAC computer was started. He was asked “Why don’t you work with us on a computer?” He said “What’s a computer?” This was the first stored program computer. Sol wrote the syntax of new programs, doing things for the first time, and developed early decision tables. He wrote a classic book, “Decision Tables: Theory and Practice”. He worked for Rand and for the North American Space Division and was in charge of a DoD users need survey. The current conferences on Statistics and Computing would not have existed without the efforts of Sol Pollack. He was a cofounder of DPMA and a key developer of COBOL.

Sol Pollack passed away some years ago, so the award was presented to his daughter Linda. She said she thinks there are more acronyms than computers. Her Dad was an amazing guy. She remembers going to Rand and seeing a huge computer. This amazing machine could make a cartoon do a hula dance. He was fascinated with computers and the language of computers. She said she found out a lot about what her father had done tonight. He always wanted his family to know the wonder of the world around us.

Ed Manderfield introduced Dr. Robert Rector. He obtained a MS from Stanford in 1936 and a PhD from the University of Maryland in 1956. He was in the U.S. Navy and was a Navy reserve officer for 32 years, retiring as a Commander. He worked for Ramo Woolridge in 1956 and at Aerospace Corporation in 1961. He was the second LA ACM member to head the fall Joint Computer Conference. In 1980 he went to UCLA and directed AFIPS for 6 years. He has produced many important publications. He is both a success and a nice guy to boot. He is well liked, but it takes more than a good disposition to accomplish what he has done. Ed presented the award to Dr. Rector.

Robert Rector said that when he started his career mathematicians got to teach mathematics. He didn’t count on the wars and technical advancement that changed his life. Dr. David Young taught him programming and recruited him to California where he met Water Bauer who encouraged everyone to join ACM. He became Vice-Chair and Chair and the meetings were held at the Fox Hills Country Club. Average meeting attendance was 200-300. He started a number of ACM publications and served on many jobs on AFIPS. He had a great time and got some notable keynote speakers, Gerald Ford when he was Vice-President and Jimmy Carter when he was Governor of Georgia. He was a Presidential candidate when he spoke at the conference. He spoke about some of the great conferences held in the past. Looking back a bit he wondered if he should be proud of being at the high point of LA ACM. Did he build it up or was he responsible for it going down?

This was a grand meeting and this report does not do justice to the many interesting tales about these four people who are very much responsible for both the advances in computers and software over the years and the successful establishment of the Los Angeles Chapter of ACM

This was the eleventh meeting of the LA Chapter year and was attended by 26 persons.

Mike Walsh, LA ACM Secretary