William Norris (CEO)
| William Charles Norris | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 14, 1911 near Red Cloud, Nebraska |
| Died | August 21, 2006 (aged 95) Bloomington, Minnesota |
| Residence | Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | University of Nebraska |
| Occupation | Computer executive |
| Employer | Westinghouse, Engineering Research Associates, Sperry Rand |
| Known for | Chief Executive Officer of Control Data Corporation |
| Spouse(s) | Jane Malley Norris |
| Children | William, George, Daniel, Brian, Roger, David, Constance Van Hoven and Mary Keck |
| Awards | IEEE Founders Medal (1985) |
William Charles Norris (July 14, 1911 near Red Cloud, Nebraska – August 21, 2006) was an American business executive. He was the CEO of Control Data Corporation, at one time one of the most powerful and respected computer companies in the world. He is famous for taking on IBM in a head-on fight and winning, as well as being a social activist who used Control Data's expansion in the late 1960s to bring jobs and training to inner cities and disadvantaged communities.
Norris was born and raised on a cattle farm in Nebraska, attending a tiny school in Inavale, Nebraska and operating a ham radio. He attained a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nebraska in 1932. He spent two years on his family's farm after graduation, helping weather the Great Depression and a significant drought in the Midwest by risking the use of Russian thistle as cattle feed.
Norris served in the United States Navy as a codebreaker, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander while working at the Navy's Nebraska Avenue Complex in Washington, DC. His technical accomplishments included advancing methods for identifying U-boats.
Before entering military service, Norris sold X-Ray equipment for the Westinghouse Corporation in Chicago, then worked for the Bureau of Ordnance as a civil servant engineer until signing with the Naval Reserve.
Norris entered the computer business just after World War II, when along with Howard Engstrom and other US Navy cryptographers he formed Engineering Research Associates (ERA) in January, 1946 to build scientific computers. He hired forty of the members of his codebreaking team and set up shop in a glider factory with Northwestern Aeronautical, a major government contractor. ERA was fairly successful, but in the early 1950s a lengthy series of government probes into "Navy funding" drained the company and it was sold to Remington Rand. They operated within Remington Rand as a separate division for a time, but during the later merger with Sperry Corporation that formed Sperry Rand, their division was merged with UNIVAC. This resulted in most of ERA's work being dropped. As a result, several employees left and set up Control Data, unanimously selecting Norris as president.
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