Changing the World - Sept/Oct 2017

CHANGING THE WORLD What your investment in UT makes possible

FROM THE PANHANDLE TO A PC REVOLUTION Bob O’Rear changed the trajectory for personal computing. Now he’s doing the same for Texas science students.

Above: NASA’s Mission Control

staff in Houston on the first day of the Apollo 10 mission in May 1968 Opposite: Bob O’Rear (M.S. ’66) (second row, far left) was employee number seven at Microsoft, a small software company that mostly wrote software for computer languages at the time of this company photo (1978).

O’Rear wrote computer code that helped guide Apollo astronauts safely home and led the team that developed software for the first IBM PC. CREDIT: Vivian Abagiu

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N

ot m a n y kids grow ing up in sm a ll - tow n

T ex a s

in the

1940 s

and 50s envisioned a day when their brainpower could help send a man to the moon and back again. Fewer still could have hoped to achieve a level of industry success that allowed them to support

the growth of one of the best computer science programs in the country and the creation of a revolutionary research initiative in health diagnostics.

To high-school aged Bob O’Rear, raised by sharecropping grandparents in the Texas Panhandle, such a life would have seemed as distant and mysterious as the moon itself.

At the time, O’Rear was a B student with few aspirations. But thanks to a loan program for disadvantaged students from his hometown, of Perryton, O’Rear attended Texas Western College (now The University of Texas at El Paso).

Many of the students O’Rear met in his dormitory were engineering majors. He initially majored in physical education so that he could return to Perryton to coach tennis and teach health education.

“They teased me mercilessly about my P.E. major,” he recalled. “[They told me] how difficult their major was and that I probably couldn’t handle it.”

Fed up with the teasing, O’Rear signed up for calculus the next year to prove that he could pass. It was extremely hard work, but he made one of the few A’s in the class and subsequently changed his major.

“I was a full-fledged convert to the beauty and power of mathematics,” he said.

After graduation in 1964, O’Rear began graduate studies in math at The University of Texas at Austin. He took an astrophysics

course and discovered the joy of calculating the orbits of comets and planets. He also took a few computer programming courses and realized that his computer skills—along with math and astrophysics—could be useful in the aerospace industry.

“This was the mid ’60s, and probably the most glamorous job you could find as a math guy was working in the space program,” O’Rear said. “It was just really exciting.”

When he finished his master’s degree in the summer of 1966, O’Rear had about a dozen job offers. He took one with a company in Redondo Beach, California called TRW. There, he wrote top-secret programs for spy satellites. In 1968 he transferred to Houston to support the Apollo space program.

Just a few years later, O’Rear was writing algorithms for a mainframe to calculate re-entry paths for Apollo command modules returning from the moon to ensure that they didn’t skip off the atmosphere, burn up, or splash down too far from Navy recovery ships.

When astronauts returned to Earth safely, O’Rear felt a special pride in having been part of their successful journey.

GIVING BACK

After Apollo, O’Rear worked on various m i l it a r y a nd a er o s p a c e pr oje c t s a nd co-founded a company that made automated manufacturing systems.

In 1977, a friend told him about a six-person software company in A lbuquerque, New Mex ico, look ing to h ire someone w it h programming and math skills.

“He told me about this young guy, Bill, who was running the company and looked about 13 but was very knowledgeable about computers,” O’Rear said. “I interviewed with Bill Gates and Paul Allen. It took no time to realize that both of them were very talented.”

He joined the team, and it grew to 12 people.

They moved to Bellevue, Washington, in January 1979. The following year, they would receive a fateful call from computer giant IBM. The company wanted to know if O’Rear and his team could help with a top-secret project to build, in less than a year, an affordable personal computer for ordinary people.

Bob O’Rear, Microsoft employee number seven, says he and his team proposed to not only produce languages for the computer, but a complete operating system. It was a risky move.

“From the fall of 1980 to mid-summer 1981, I worked almost every day, all day on the IBM project,” O’Rear said. “I basically put the rest of my life on hold as I worked to make the PC a reality.”

He recalled the moment he was sitting in front of his screen and all the parts of the new operating system, MS DOS, began to work together correctly. “It was the best feeling in the world.”

The IBM PC was launched on August 12, 1981 and soon became the world’s dominant

microcomputer. At its peak, the IBM PC sold at a rate of one every minute of every business day. It set the industry standard for a slew of compatible machines from other ma nufacturers whose descenda nts still grace the desktops of hundreds of millions of users around the world. The age of personal computing had arrived.

After the successful launch of the IBM PC, with MS DOS at its core, O’Rear went on to open Microsoft subsidiaries in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Hong Kong, and South Africa. He retired in 1993.

In his retirement, O’Rear joined the advisory council for UT Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and helped raise funds for a new computer science building.

“Before that building, they were scattered all over campus,” said O’Rear. “They didn’t have their own building or identity. And it was hampering their ability to attract young new professors to the computer science department.”

He convinced his longtime friend, Bill Gates, to contribute to the effort. As the fundraising for what would become the Gates-Dell Computer Science Building was nearing its goal, O’Rear wanted a way to thank Gates. He decided to donate funds to create a student research program in Gates’ honor that would advance one of the billionaire’s major interests: global health. That program, called DIY Diagnostics, is a research stream w ithin the Freshman Research Initiative.

Student researchers in the stream work on a range of projects, from developing apps to detect skin cancer to crafting a cheap, portable device for testing mosquitos to see if they carry diseases such as malaria or Zika.

“The big accomplishment here is that we’re showing kids what research is like and how fun it can be,” he said. “If they discover something important from the research, it will be the cherry on top of the sundae.”

O’Rear now lives near Seattle, Washington with his wife Cathy. He continues to support the College of Natural Sciences through IRA transfers* and his work on its advisory council.

He says his time in graduate school on the Forty Acres made a huge mark on his career, from introducing him to astrophysics and computer programming, to connecting him with potential employers in the aerospace industry.

“My career would never have gone anywhere if it weren’t for The University of Texas,” said O’Rear. “It really opened the doors for me.”

“ The big accomplishment here is that we’re showing kids what research is like and how fun it can be.”

– bob o’rear

* IRA transfers allow individuals age 70½ and older to avoid paying income tax on their mandatory IRA distributions by making a charitable donation to UT Austin directly from their IRA. s e p t e m b e r | o c t o b e r 2011

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CHANGING THE WORLD What your investment in UT makes possible

PARSING THE PRESS

One Texas Ex Ensures that the Next Generation of Journalists Can See Past Media Bias

S

t u den ts of jou r na lism a r e pr epa r ing to en ter a wor l d of

constant competition. As news media professionals, they will be bombarded by the 24-hour news cycle, clickbait, and competing partisan voices. They will have to navigate a collapsing business

model as social media and web-based outlets change the nature of the trade. The challenges could easily overwhelm the unprepared.

Above: Images from the Denius

Symposium on News Integrity CREDIT: Moody College of

Communiation

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But the future of journalism is safe in the hands of Longhorns. In 2014, Wofford Denius made a gift that established an annual gathering of thought leaders, political figures, and media experts. The Denius Symposium on News Integrity targets undergraduate students in

the School of Journalism at the Moody College of Communication who aspire to the ideals of ethical reporting. “As our students venture into careers that depend on either producing or keeping up with news media, understanding the challenges

facing the industry is of utmost importance,” says Talia Stroud, founding director of the Engaging News Project and associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies.

An entertainment industry attorney specializing in music law, Wofford Denius received his bachelor of business administration from The University of Texas at Austin in 1974. By giving back to the Forty Acres, Denius not only supports student learning, but news media integrity itself.

“Every day now, whether on a Twitter feed, or flipping through cable channels or listening to the radio, we are bombarded by voices,” says R.B. Brenner, director of the School of Journalism and the G.B. Dealey Regents Professor in Journalism at the Moody College of Communication. “This symposium affords thoughtful people the time and space to explore the essential issues of news integrity.”

“At the heart of whether journalism thrives or perishes is the issue of trust.”

– r.b. brenner Previous panelists have included former Texas state senator Wendy Davis, senior political advisor and Austin-based communications professional Rob Johnson, and PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan.

Regina Lawrence, director of the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication, moderated last year’s symposium and noted that modern factors make it difficult to agree on any one definition of news. “We live in this dramatically chaotic and varied media environment.

Trying to define what we mean by news—by journalism today—is more difficult than you might think.”

In an environment that so frequently challenges its practitioners, students need the best preparation possible in order to parse industry influences. The Denuis Symposium meets that need by providing students a chance to be part of the conversation. “Recurring symposia mean students get to see newsmakers wrestle with issues related to news integrity,” notes Stroud, who presented findings from a national survey on election and political coverage at last year’s meeting.

With sponsorship from the Annette Straus Institute for Civic Life, Stroud led a team of nine undergraduate and two graduate students in conducting the Texas Media and Society Survey. “The survey results show a public with deep skepticism about the media and politics,” reported Stroud. “We are challenged to think about how to improve news media in today’s climate.”

That improvement will come from the next generation of ethical journalists and the media consumers who trust their reporting. “At the heart of whether journalism thrives or perishes is the issue of trust,” says Brenner.

“Trust is multi-faceted. The public has to believe that journalists are absolutely devoted to accuracy and that they aren’t approaching issues with an agenda.”

Having the space and the leading voices to discuss best practice afford UT Austin’s journalism students a competitive edge.

Thanks to opportunities like the Denius Symposium, Longhorns have the tools to become the objective voices we turn to for daily news we can trust.

To learn more about supporting the Wofford Denius School of Journalism or to contribute to efforts like the Denius Symposium on News Integrity, contact Michael Wilson, assistant dean of external relations at the Moody College of Communication at michael.wilson@austin.utexas.edu or 512-475-9165.

A Place to Remember THE STEPHANIE FLORES WOMEN’S RUGBY LAWN HONORS THE MEMORY OF A LONGHORN LEADER

T

he Recreational Sports’ fields at Guadalupe and 51st streets have long been sacred ground. For multiple generations of Longhorns, RecSports and its Sport Clubs provide a special opportunity to grow together. Teams like Texas Women’s Rugby practice multiple times a week, challenging each other to achieve greatness both on and off the field.

In 2011, women’s rugby captain Stephanie Flores suffered a fatal head injury during a match. A senior biology major, Stephanie was just months away from graduation. Her mother, Mary Jane Flores describes Stephanie as “very selfless; she was like a mother hen to her team.”

The Flores family and Texas Women’s Rugby alumni knew they wanted to honor Stephanie’s memory as a student and an athlete. Together, they raised $100,000 in support of renovations to the fields where she spent so many hours pushing herself and her teammates to give their all. The Stephanie Flores Women’s Rugby Lawn at the newly renovated Wright Whitaker Sports Complex provides a place for students and alumni to unite. It honors the energy, optimism, and love of rugby that defined Stephanie’s student experience at UT Austin.

“Steph’s love of the game and love of her teammates echoes in what we did with the lawn. As a former Longhorn, it makes me extremely proud to have something like this for rugby players,” said Lyliana Gonzalez, BA ’11.

Today, nearly 260,000 participation hours take place at the Charles Alan Wright Fields at the Berry M. Whitaker Sports Complex each year, making it one of the most essential recreation facilities for UT Austin students. Updates completed in April of this year allow students to enjoy sports, socialize, study, and build relationships. The complex has tennis, volleyball, basketball and pickleball courts, a fire pit, and a pavilion.

But for those who think of a special rugby captain every time they visit the complex, the improvements include a lasting tribute. “When I’m no longer here, this lawn will still be here, giving students a place to become a family, talk, and laugh,” reflects Mary Jane Flores.

To learn how you can honor the memory of a Longhorn leader, contact Division of Student Affairs Director of Development Maureen Brown at mbrown@austin. utexas.edu or 512-475-6134.

Changing the World is produced by the University Development Office. Please send your feedback and suggestions to Lee Bash at lbash@austin.utexas.edu.

For more news and information about giving to UT-Austin, visit giving.utexas.edu.

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