Browsing by Subject "Alfred P. Sloan Foundation"

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Oral history interview with Anita B. Marsh
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-09) Marsh, Anita B.
Anita Marsh majored in mathematics at Texas Tech and gained a master’s degree in mathematics at Northwestern University in Chicago in 1968, then took a position at Bell Laboratories (Naperville, IL) where she learned IBM assembly language on the job. One early assignment was creating a software emulator for the hardware of an ESS then in development. Marsh describes her experiences working part-time or flexible hours as a full Member of Technical Staff while raising children and lobbying for day care. Subsequent assignments were in internetworking, commercial UNIX, and 5ESS. In recognition of her technical achievements, she was made a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in 1983 and retired from Bell in 1996. She describes her subsequent software work for Tellabs in wireless telephones and VOIP and for Arris in cable modems. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Ann S. Kaufman
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-23) Kaufman, Ann S.
Ann Kaufman graduated from an all-girls academic high school, then took a bachelor’s degree in math from Queens College (CUNY) with a Regent’s Scholarship and then a master’s degree in math from Duke University. After teaching mathematics at a junior high school for three years, she took her first computer science courses at Staten Island College where an instructor arranged an interview with Bell Labs. Hired at Bell she took a master’s in computer science at Stevens Institute of Technology. She relates her experiences on assignment at Bell Southern, an operating company, and her subsequent Bell Labs work in programming, systems engineering, product management, and systems integration. She then traveled extensively in helping internationalize AT&T's Unix system, and then worked in different capacities for Novell and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), after they successively bought the Unix division. She returned to Lucent Technologies then Avaya, doing project management for several data centers. Then, after a post-2001 hiatus, she returned to project-management and consulting work for Diageo (the drinks conglomerate). She offers thoughts on outsourcing and professional entrance in the IT workforce. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Barbara H. Hornbach
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-10) Hornbach, Barbara H.
Barbara Hornbach attended Vassar College where she worked with pioneering computer scientist Winifred Asprey and led the local student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery. After her graduation in 1969, she began a career in software development and management with Bell Laboratories in Naperville, Illinois. The interview describes her technical work at Bell (on 4ESS and 5ESS) as well as participation in affirmative action committees and workshops within Bell. During 1980-84, Hornbach chaired a standardization sub-committee within CCITT dealing with human-machine interface standards for telephone switching systems. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Barbara Jani
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-12) Jani, Barbara
Barbara Jani graduated in 1967 from Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia (where she studied with fellow interviewee Kathy Detrano) with a math degree. Her first exposure to computing was at Burroughs Corporation’s Great Valley Labs in the Philadelphia area, working on government funded research using the JOVIAL programming language and a reservation system for TWA. For experience with IBM computers, she moved to Washington, DC, and worked for a small company doing government work and then a larger company, Planning Research Corporation, doing military work; and then Boeing Corporation helping run a computing services center. At American Airlines — initially in Tulsa, OK, and later in Dallas, TX — she worked as a project leader on computing systems for personnel and retirement, scheduling, reservations and ticketing. At SABRE (American’s computer division) she managed InterAAct, an early company-wide networking scheme; a test center; and company-wide computer security. She discusses changing prospects for women supervisors at American Airlines. She retired from American in 2000. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Beth Eddy
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-10) Eddy, Beth
Beth Eddy grew up in rural New York state then graduated with a math degree from Elmhurst College (outside Chicago). She accepted a job in 1966 at Western Electric working on the pioneering ESS, initially in downtown Chicago and then relocating to the Bell Labs Indian Hill facility in Naperville. Her work involved assembly or machine language programming, eventually COBOL, supporting large databases for the ESS project. After three years, she moved into installation engineering for ESS. She describes tactics for women’s “voice” to be effectively heard in meetings. She led a protest against a men-only ‘Stag Picnic’ (described also in Lois Herr’s Women, Power and AT&T [2002]). With a promotion to department chief, she became the earliest women in Western Electric management. To achieve salary parity, she arranged a transfer to AT&T headquarters and worked in maintenance engineering, another male-dominated area, returning to Indian Hill (around 1980) as assistant manager of the data center and a development group. She then took on supervisory positions in Human Relations, building construction, software development, and switching installation. She discusses strategies for attracting women and African-American staff as well as managing a diverse workforce. She shares observations on the 1970s women’s movement and its subsequent evolution. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Carol Eymann Moller
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-26) Moller, Carol Eymann
Carol Moller took courses at a branch of UCLA close to her childhood home in Los Angeles and then graduated from Stanford University in 1957 as a math major. She took a job as a computer programmer at Shell [Oil] Development in Emeryville, CA. She describes flow charting in machine language, batch processing with punch cards, and then the coming of FORTRAN. She and her husband came to Minnesota for his pediatrics residency, and she took a position with General Mills mechanical division (on East Hennepin) working on a highly classified antimissile project. She moved to Texas for two years when her husband went into the Army. In the 1980s she studied several languages (at the University of Minnesota) and then took up historical linguistics and ESL teaching. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Carolyn S. Miller
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-01) Miller, Carolyn S.
Carolyn S. Miller graduated in 1968 with a degree in mathematics from the University of Kentucky, which had significant computing courses at the time. She took a job at Bell Laboratories military division in Whippany, New Jersey, working on the Safeguard Ballistic Missile Defense System while gaining a master’s degree from Stevens Institute of Technology. When Bell canceled the missile project, she moved with other Whippany staff to Bell Labs in Naperville, Illinois, to work on software for ESS (Electronic Switching System). The interview discusses affirmative action and the women’s movement. She left Bell in 1976 for General Electric and then North Carolina State, where she experienced significant gender differences in teaching introductory computer science. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Dana Becker Dunn
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-07) Dunn, Dana Becker
Dana Becker Dunn graduated from a rural Illinois high school, then attended Southern Illinois University as a math major taking numerous computing courses and graduating in 1972. She joined Bells Labs as one of the last STA ‘courtship’ hires, completing a master’s in electrical engineering and computer science from Northwestern University. Her technical career began in operating systems programming, with a specialty in relational databases; then she was promoted into supervisory positions in the AT&T headquarters in New Jersey. As a Sloan Fellow she completed an executive MBA at MIT in 1984 then went to work for AT&T information systems division. Among her managerial responsibilities were connecting marketing and technical staffs; overseeing large operational groups in marketing and communications; and in 1994 separating Lucent Technologies from AT&T. She retired in 2001 as an officer of Avaya. She reflects on the transformation of women’s issues within AT&T, including a suggestion that with overt forms of discrimination largely banished, it may have ‘gone underground’ and be more difficult to locate. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Fran Chessler
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-14) Chessler, Fran
Fran Chessler attended the University of Michigan as a General Motors Scholar, majoring in mathematics and psychology and graduating in 1970. She went to work at Bell Labs Naperville, working on assembly-language programming to collect call data for 1ESS. She discusses the gender biases in the STA and MTS hiring grades. Promoted to MTS she did a master’s at Northwestern University. She discusses affirmative action and the distinct culture of Bell Labs Indian Hill/Naperville. In part owing to connections from the Men and Women in the Work Environment workshops, she moved to the computer center department doing systems programming on IBM computers. She describes an effective management style by her supervisor, Dana Dunn. She moved into a department chief position at Western Electric’s network system division, and compares affirmative action there to Bell Labs. In the mid-1980s she experienced unsettled times in AT&T computer systems, then returned to Bell Labs (all in Chicago) as a supervisor. In moving to the business side as senior product manager, she completed an executive MBA at Northwestern University; and retired from AT&T in 2001. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Fran H. Henig
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-16) Henig, Fran H.
Fran Henig graduated in 1964 from Wheaton College, an all-women school in Massachusetts, as a math major. She accepted a job with Bell Labs and began work at the Whippany NJ computer center, doing part time study for a master’s degree. With the advent of time-sharing, the computer center moved from IBM to GE/Honeywell machines to run MULTICS. Henig initially worked on adapting IBM programs and applications for the GE computers using FORTRAN, machine language, and SNOBOL. She emphasizes the importance of affirmative action for women at Bell Labs, including the women in the work environment workshops; and discusses strategies for making women’s voices heard in meetings. She accepted a technical supervisor position in 1971, then moved to a development division working on phone-system troubleshooting and became a department head. She shares observations about the organizational and cultural changes at AT&T in the 1980s. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Gayle Spiess
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-14) Spiess, Gayle
Gayle Spiess grew up in Minneapolis and attended Valparaiso University (in Indiana), graduating in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. She had worked for Sperry Univac one summer during college, then after graduating took a full-time professional position at Plant 8 (Eagan, MN) doing programming for a Navy ship project. She notes support from her direct supervisor as well as self-study in 16-bit assembler code, which she used for more than a dozen years. Her working group was stable for 3-4 years, even when she physically worked on a top secret project in Building 6 near the original Engineering Research Associates (ERA) plant in St. Paul. Back in Eagan, she worked on a Navy communication system (NAVMACS) and assisted with warship installations in Virginia, Japan, and Australia. Later she did programming with the high-level language ADA as well as C, which became the dominant programming language. A major responsibility was software for the air traffic control (ATC) group from 1993 to 2002 (eventually part of Lockheed Martin), then first-line management and project engineering for ATC (2002-7). She discusses recruitment and characteristics of successful project teams and managerial strategies for them. She also relates observations about changes in corporate culture with the Unisys merger, Loral acquisition, and Lockheed Martin purchase. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Helen Ann Bauer
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-08) Bauer, Helen Ann
Helen Bauer studied computer science and mathematics at Purdue University, graduating in 1972 and then starting work as a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories in Naperville, Illinois. The interview describes Bell’s affirmative action committees and workshops and its corporate culture. Bauer relates her experiences moving into managerial positions beginning in 1977, finding role models in co-workers, organizing support groups for women in management, and relating anecdotes about challenges. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Helen Ann Bauer, Fran Chessler, Mary R. Feay, Mary Holt, Joyce Malleck, and Anita B. Marsh
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-11-18) Bauer, Helen Ann; Chessler, Fran; Feay, Mary R.; Holt, Mary; Malleck, Joyce; Marsh, Anita B.
This interview — with Helen Bauer, Fran Chessler, Mary Feay, Mary Holt, Joyce Malleck, and Anita Marsh — took place during a two-hour luncheon. The interview does not have a biographical or career narrative, and is only loosely chronological. The interviewer posed periodic questions but the interview is mostly the stories, anecdotes, and observations of these six women. The topics include dress codes and AT&T corporate culture; early job experiences and attraction to programming and computing; women in leadership positions at Bell Labs; affirmative action committees and workshops; interactions with the wider 1970s women’s movement; personal experiences with child care; the impact of the Urban Minorities Workshop; observations about the levels of women in computing today; reflections on the transformation of the women’s movement, and responses to the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president (ten days prior to this interview); comparisons of computing with other professions; and general observations about recent modes of computing including mobile computing and social media. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Jan Raycraft
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-11-09) Raycraft, Jan
Jan Raycraft grew up in northern Minnesota and graduated in 1980 from the University of Minnesota-Duluth with a double degree in biology and chemistry, gaining valuable experience in FORTRAN programming. (She later in 1987 received a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.) Direct from college she was recruited into an engineering division of the US Navy, serving as engineering duty officer (1981-2001) in Long Beach CA, Sturgeon Bay WI, and Annapolis MD in a variety of ship repair, ship inspection, managerial, and teaching roles. She vividly relates her experience supervising shipyard workers and the strategies she used to win their trust and confidence. Her experience teaching naval cadets in Annapolis affords her to offer comments on men and women naval midshipmen and gender-role expectations in a military setting. She moved from the Navy to Lockheed Martin in 2001 and worked there for 11 years as a program manager. In this setting, she describes elements of Lockheed Martin’s corporate culture, interactions with Navy customers and computer vendors, and her shifting activities as Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) computing became the norm. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Jan Sharpless
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-14) Sharpless, Jan
Jan Sharpless graduated from Principia College in southern Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in biology. Her father, an executive at Bell Labs, encouraged her to apply for a programmer training position and she was hired by Bell Labs in 1972. She describes several early programming experiences, aimed at solving practical problems experienced in the AT&T phone system. Working in New Jersey, she completed a master’s degree at Rutgers in 1976, and describes working with Chen Foo, a talented scientist-programmer-manager who served as a valued mentor to her. One memorable multi-year project was Cosmos, which assisted with the assignment of phone numbers to subscribers. In 1981 she moved with her husband to the Chicago area, and joined the Indian Hill (Naperville IL) facility to work on 5ESS call processing. Promoted into management and soon becoming an executive, she describes performance reviews, affirmative action, and career management strategies. She retired from AT&T in 2006. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Jane Hauser Pejsa
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-28) Pejsa, Jane Hauser
Jane Hauser Pejsa grew up in Minneapolis and graduated from Carleton College in 1951 with a degree in mathematics, then took an engineering position with Northwestern Bell Telephone in downtown Minneapolis. Her supportive math professor, Kenneth O. May, helped her land a position with Remington Rand Univac at the original Engineering Research Associates factory in St. Paul. At Univac she worked with Earl Joseph, then later worked in General Mills’ government computing division with Francis Alterman, founder of the short-lived Advanced Scientific Instruments. After briefly working for a book publisher, she took a position as a FORTRAN specialist with Honeywell Systems and Research developing computing and guidance systems for the Space Shuttle. She offers numerous character sketches and anecdotes, which she has written down in an essay entitled Memoir of a Fortran Queen (2016). This material is based on work funded by the
Oral history interview with Jean M. Baker
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-07) Baker, Jean M.
Jean Baker attended the University of Minnesota, majoring in electrical engineering with an emphasis on digital design. The summer of 1980 she worked for Honeywell (St. Louis Park, MN) on ring laser gyroscopes. Graduating in 1981 she took a job in the defense systems division of Sperry Rand, working in Eagan, Minnesota, to develop computers for the US Navy. Her technical work focused on gate arrays for input-output cards, including the UYK-43 computer. After working part-time while raising small children, she moved to a new job at LSI Logic (1995-2009) working on ASICs for IBM, HP, Lexmark, and Seagate then moving into management. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Jo Anne Miller
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-04) Miller, Jo Anne
Jo Anne Miller graduated in December 1967 with a degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan, where she had experience with computer programming. She took a job in Boston at GTE Sylvania working on military projects, then moved to St. Louis (when her husband was drafted) and ran a computer center at Parks College of St. Louis University, then did research at University of Colorado where she worked on a Master’s degree. She was recruited (a second time) by Bell Labs and began work at Bell Labs Naperville in March 1976, as a Member of Technical Staff working in software restructuring for electronic switching systems. She describes her experience with affirmative action, the women’s movement, and work culture and career expectations at Bell Labs. In 1978 she became a technical supervisor for 5ESS software development, relating short-term rotational experiences with installing 5ESS in California and in southern Illinois. She describes challenges advocating for part-time managerial positions, child care, and suggests there were changes in the support for affirmative action in the 1980s. Working for the Western Electric organization in the mid-1980s, she completed an executive MBA at the University of Chicago. After leaving Bell she became involved with MentorNet in 2003 and in investing in women-backed businesses. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Joyce Malleck
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2008-08-01) Malleck, Joyce
Joyce Malleck graduated from Mundelein College with a major in math and a minor in physics, and then received a master’s degree in math from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She accepted a job at Western Electric and went to work at the Bell Labs facility in Naperville, Illinois. She did programming courses at the corporate training center in Princeton NJ, learning COBOL, assembler, PL/1, and a proprietary Bell database management language. (She later did a MBA at the University of Chicago, completed in 1980.) An early assignment was programming to direct an automatic wiring machine for the ESS manufacturing. She was promoted to department chief, initially maintaining a data center’s operating system then doing software and database development for the customer side of ESS. In the 1970s she started a software quality department, which involved greater attention to written formal specifications, code reviews, and structured developmental processes — software engineering. Leaving Bell in 1989, she worked for Motorola for ten years as a product manager and consultant to industry. She compares Bell’s and Motorola’s treatment of and attitudes to women, relating insightful personal anecdotes. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
Oral history interview with Judith A. Lindner
(Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-14) Lindner, Judith A.
Judith Lindner graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1968 with a degree in mathematics. Taking a job at Bell Laboratories in Naperville, Illinois, she worked initially in a computer-aided design group, doing assembly-language programming, and then in managerial positions including merit review and team recruitment. The interview describes Bell’s affirmative action committees and workshops as well as its distinctive corporate culture. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”

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