My Years in the Information Technology Trenches From Data Processing to Information Technology

Showing intimate involvement in the world of computers since 1956, this work sets down experiences, observations, and adventures of one participant from these almost 60 years of information technology development. It shows the importance of a knack for and insight into computer operation including technical distance and computer system flexibility. Because the value of understanding technology is all too often not made clear to today's students and managers at all levels they tend to lack the ambition and interest in technical subjects to become qualified to make decisions regarding technology. One of the goals of My Years is to help overcome this phenomena by showing the importance of technology and related subjects and to show that they can be fun, exciting, interesting, while occasionally being terrifying. Subjects include: Ingenuity/insight into computer software and hardware operation, being a curmudgeon as well as a Crudmudgeon (showing the importance of the data cycle: Create, Read, Update, and Delete), the process of obtaining a PhD in order to be able to teach technology, as well as technical distance, and (in)flexible systems.

Bruce Johnson has been retired at three different Colorado locations since the spring of 1998. Currently he resides at the Holly Creek Retirement Community in Centennial. In retirement he has coauthored journal articles and a trade book. Bruce received his BS in Civil Engineering in 1959 and his MS in 1962 (during which he detoured into information technology). After careers with Procter & Gamble, General Computer Services Corporation, Thoman Software, Billboard Publications, and as an independent data processor, he entered university teaching in 1982 at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He acquired his PhD in Operations Management, Information Technology, and Organization Behavior in 1990. He obtained a MBA in 1985.