Browsing by Subject "Bell Labs -- Indian Hill facility"

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    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).”
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    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).”
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    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).”
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    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).”
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    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).”
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    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).”
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    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).”
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    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).”
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    Oral history interview with Karen Coates
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-14) Coates, Karen
    Karen Coates grew up in rural northwest Washington state, then graduated from Mills College (Oakland CA) with a degree in mathematics. She describes lessons learned in running FORTRAN programs at nearby Cal State Hayward, a summer internship at IBM, and then work with UC Berkeley’s Laura Gould that led to computer-science teaching at Mills and at Stanford University. Continuing her computer science education at Northwestern University, she met many Bell Labs women working there on master’s degrees and applied herself for a job at Bell Labs. She began work at Bell Labs Naperville in 1974 as a Member of Technical Staff assigned to 4ESS then moved to the Computation Center and worked on the Bell Laboratories Network, an early packet-switched network. She describes working at Bell’s Murray Hill (NJ) facility with Bjarne Stroustrop, during the time he developed “C with Classes” which evolved into C++. Returning to Naperville/Indian Hills, she took up managerial positions in the networking project and then in switching-system applied research. She relates her experiences with the 1970s women’s movement and the supportive network of women colleagues. She left Bells Labs in 1985 and moved to California, where she worked for a subsidiary of TRW on military intelligence systems; a communications company called Octel; a startup venture; and a health-care enterprise celled Omnicell. She describes subtle transformations in gender discrimination in the 1980s and in Silicon Valley. 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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    Oral history interview with Marda Higdon Jones
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-06) Jones, Marda Higdon
    Marda Higdon Jones went to high school in Iowa City and attended Iowa State University, graduating in 1972 with a major in mathematics and minor in computer science, and accepting a job with Bell Labs in Naperville, IL. In 1976, after being promoted to MTS, she completed a master’s degree at Northwestern University (and, later, an executive MBA from Columbia University). She discuses the influence on her and her colleagues of the 1970s women’s movement and affirmative action programs at AT&T, including the Men and Women in the Work Environment and Urban Minorities workshops. In the 1970s she worked in software development, then after a one-year rotational assignment in New Jersey, she returned to Naperville in a managerial position and then moved to Holmdel, NJ, as department head in systems engineering then division manager for network architecture. In 1988 she was promoted to director at Bell Labs, and the interview relates several instances of managerial and personnel challenges. She joined Lucent Technologies, the Bell Labs spin-off, in 1996 and retired in 2000. She reflects on 1970s-era gendered images of ‘electrical engineer’ and ‘computer scientist’. 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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    Oral history interview with Mary Holt
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-22) Holt, Mary
    Mary Holt graduated as a math major from Mount St. Joseph College, an all-women school in Cincinnati Ohio, then received a master’s in information science in 1970 from the University of Chicago. There many of her classmates were from Bell Labs; she herself took a position at Bell Labs Naperville IL facility. She describes her engagement with issues of inequality in the workplace and opportunity for women. She describes an important model in the Urban Minorities workshops, started by AT&T Bell Labs management to address racism, and her role in starting the influential Men and Women in the Work Environment workshops. She describes changes in Bell Labs’ company culture, through her departure in 1978 for Illinois Bell. She took a second master’s degree in Social and Organizational Psychology from the University of Chicago and returned to work in AT&T Corporation’s human relations, then took up an external career with ARC International, a training and consulting firm based in Colorado. 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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    Oral history interview with Mary R. Feay
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-09) Feay, Mary R.
    Mary Feay attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, taking an undergraduate degree in mathematics and then two master’s, in math and computer science, in 1966-67. She accepted a job with Bell Labs and began work initially in New Jersey, then moved to Bell Labs Indian Hill in Naperville, IL, working in the computer center doing operating systems and programming languages — creating software tools used in developing the electronic switching systems (ESS). She was promoted in 1977 into supervisory roles for system testing, office applications, and standards-setting. The latter included a three-year stint (1980-83) participating in the development of CHILL, the CCITT High Level Language. She assesses a set of 1967 advertisements from the trade journal Datamation, then relates her experience at Bell during the 1970s with affirmative action as well as hiring practices. 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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    Oral history interview with Yvonne M. Shepard
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-17) Shepard, Yvonne M.
    Yvonne Shepard was born in Puerto Rico and graduated in 1968 with a math degree from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, an all-women school in Indiana. She accepted a job at Bell Labs as a STA, while a male classmate (from Rose Polytechnic) hired in as MTS. Transferred to Chicago, she did master's work in engineering at Northwestern (graduating in 1976) and became MTS. She discusses several instances of male managers’ attitudes and anxieties about women employees. (She along with Mary Holt and Denise McGrew organized the Men and Women in the Work Environment workshops.) She took up a liaison position for the Bell Data Network, then assumed increasingly responsible managerial and executive positions with the AT&T organization, gaining an executive MBA in 1982 and further training in international business. Shepard became President and COO of AT&T Puerto Rico then worked in AT&T International’s marketing organization. She retired from AT&T in 1999, and pursued consulting assignments with Direct TV of Latin America and Advanta Corporation. Following 2001 she helped lead Hispanics Inspiring Students’ Performance and Achievement (HISPA). This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”