WEDNESDAY JULY 20, 2022, FAMOUS PEOPLE

 WEDNESDAY JULY 20, 2022, FAMOUS PEOPLE

I really haven’t known that many ‘famous’ people.  The first that comes to mind is Bill Janklow.  Bill (sometimes known as “Wild Bill”) was the Governor of South Dakota.  Bill was the governor at the time of the mission change at Dakota State.  With Jerome Lammers from Madison and a state senator, they proposed and passed act 1357 that made Dakota State into an information technology university.  That was the change that caused me to become the (first) Dean of the College of Business and Information Systems.

Bill was a progressive doing whatever he could to boost South Dakota.  In my opinion, that is the aim of any politician - or statesman.  He worked a deal to get Citibank’s credit card offering moved to Sioux Falls.  New York had limits on what credit cards could charge, and Bill said “Come to South Dakota and charge what you want”.  

In the early 1980s interest rates were very high.  Some financial people used their credit cards - carrying a limit of 12% interest to finance things that might have been 18 to 24% interest.  They paid off the minimum due and in effect were benefiting from the limit on credit card fees.  

The action brought Citibank’s Credit Card division to Sioux Falls.  Some of Citibank’s people said “no way” when asked to move to South Dakota.  The need was to have people who wanted to live and work in South Dakota working for Citibank (and related businesses).  

A financial expert in New York City said “What, no Broadway shows, no Madison Square Garden, no Yankee Stadium, no Bronx Zoo, no Manhattan shopping?  I’m not moving to Podunk.”

Others said, “Hmmm - affordable housing, real houses -not apartments, open land, good schools, almost no crime, and the same salary as in New York City?  Sure, sign me up”.  And, for the amount I’m saving, I can fly back to NYC when I want to.

But more technical people were needed.  The two flagship universities in South Dakota already had good enrollment and some academics were snobs when asked to set up technical and vocational programs to feed to the Citibank facility.  

Not so for Dakota State College.  Dakota State, formerly General Beadle State College and Dakota State Normal College, was a teacher preparation college (already kind of a vocational function).  It was small and struggling.  Boom - Bill Janklow said, “Let’s make Dakota State the center for information systems in the state.”

The early 1980s were a watershed moment for the world.  Personal computers - from Apple II to Radio Shack’s TRS-80, to IBM’s introduction of their personal computer (PC), were moving computing away from “big iron” to the population.  (Readers, can you imagine a world without personal computers?  A world without cell phones?)

On a momentous Saturday, Four of us sat in the cafeteria at Dakota State, Melanie Stopfer, Dick Gowen, Chuck Luke, and I created a curriculum - literally on napkins at the cafeteria.  We needed programming classes (hmm - what programming languages did Citibank need); analysis classes; database classes, operating systems courses; and more.  BOOM - we fleshed the program out in the next few weeks and we had a new curriculum and a new focus and major at Dakota State in 1983.  And, who was going to be the administrator of the program?  A young former mathematician who had taught high school math for seven years and was 35 years old at that time - ME!!

First I was acting dean, then dean of the program.  

Chuck Luke was an executive at Citibank and through his connections sent us to IBM's internal school in Irving Texas (a suburb of Dallas).  Eric Johnson, an English professor, and I were the first non-IBMers to attend that program.  We wrote programs in PL/1 - the main accounts receivable language used at Citibank.  

Aside, spending five weeks in Dallas Texas in January was quite a bit different than being in South Dakota for those five weeks - temperatures in the 60s as compared to teens, sunshine as compared to snow, and gray skies.  

I didn’t need to know how it was done, but Bill Janklow was behind it.  Money was provided.  Eric and I stayed at the Irving Inn while the IBM employees stayed in their housing.  Our funds were limited but were extravagant as compared to normal academic funding.  And, yes, we had adult beverages almost every night after programming and classes all day.

After Eric and I, others came.  Melanie Stopfer came - and eventually got hired by IBM, Tom Farrell, Lynette Molstad, and another faculty member got on the information systems bandwagon.

Periodically Bill came to campus to check on his project.  (And to work with Jerry Prostrello and Jerome Lammers behind the scenes).  Bill, known as a lead-footed driver, jokes that the “Information Superhighway was the only road he hadn’t gotten a speeding ticket”!!

And, we had eight super students hired as “Citibank Scholars” - full-ride scholarships that included a paid internship at Citibank in the summers.  (One of those scholars is now a professor at Dakota State, and the others have been promoted and very successful in the computing field).

*****

South Dakota is not a large state in terms of population (but a large state in terms of land area).  So, knowing the governor of the state might not be the same as knowing the governor of Texas.  But, Bill Janklow was a friend to my institution and to me!!!

*****

In general, I’ve had friends in significant positions and powerful people.  Another one that comes to mind is Tom Capone.  I’ll save his story for a later time.!!!

LOVE WINS!!!

Karen 

July 20, 2022