High (Plains) Tech

In the 2008 Jim Carrey film Yes Man, the protagonist decides to always say yes. His impulsiveness leads him to take a random airplane flight to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he and his companion decide that the only activities to do are to attend a University of Nebraska football game and to visit the Frank H. Woods Telephone Pioneer Association Telephone Museum.

Although local technology museums around the world can indeed be hidden treasures, the movie treats this as a humorous incident showing the dullness of Nebraska. Of course, the filmmakers are being unfair not just to the social and cultural life in Lincoln and environs in general, but specifically to its wonderful museums, including the Sheldon Museum of Art and its Philip-Johnson-designed-gallery.at the University of Nebraska, and the Museum of Nebraska History. However, Annals readers will be more concerned if—the value of the Woods Museum aside—the filmmakers are giving short shrift to technological history in this important region. The answer, of course, is yes.

A rich tradition

One thing to note is that, although the fertility of the soils of the High Plains has sometimes been suspect for farmers, these soils have not been infertile in producing important electrical and computer engineers. Natives of Nebraska include

• • electric air-conditioning innovator August Luebs (born in Nebraska, 1889);

• • inventor of the strobe light Harold E. "Doc" Edgerton (Fremont, 1903);

• • Lee Kilgore, a developer of analog computers (Leavitt, 1905);

• • Rad Lab member Robert Kyhl (Omaha, 1917);

• • William Norris, cofounder of both ERA and Control Data (Red Cloud, 1917);

• • father of magnetic memory Jay Forrester (Anselmo, 1918);

• • IBM leader Bob Evans (Grand Island, 1927);

• • semiconductor pioneer Bruce Deal (Lincoln, 1927);

• • Sketchpad-inventor and Turing-Award-winner Ivan Sutherland (Hastings, 1938); and

• • Silicon Valley pioneer Ed Zschau (Omaha, 1940).

Oral histories of many of these individuals are available on the IEEE Global History Network (http://www.ieeeghn.org).

However, lest, like the filmmakers, readers thinks that this only means that Nebraska breeds engineers to send them on to success elsewhere, let me point out that it educates them as well. Luebs, Edgerton, Kilgore, Norris, and Forrester all graduated from the University of Nebraska, and Deal attended nearby Nebraska Wesleyan where his father was dean. Luebs spent more than 40 years on the faculty of the University of Nebraska, and if it seems a stretch to include a mechanical engineer in this column, try to run a computer without some form of cooling!

Therefore, the computer traveler is encouraged to spend a good deal of time on the campus of the University of Nebraska, visiting its museums, the scenic sites, and of course, the computer and engineering facilities that continue to conduct cutting-edge research and educate the next generation of innovation leaders. (Visitor information is available at http://www.nebraska.edu/visitors.html.) And, of course, do not forget to attend a Cornhuskers game!

A lasting legacy

But we are not done with our tour of eastern Nebraska. Leaving Lincoln, the state capital and capital of Lancaster County, we travel 50 miles to the northeast by I-80 to Omaha, the state's largest city and the seat of Douglas County. Omaha, too, has museums of note. Especially recommended is the Durham Museum featuring Western heritage in the famous art-deco former Union Station in Omaha (http://www.durhammuseum.org/).But there is computer history here as well. Of course, Omaha is well-known for a number of engineering-based companies. An important branch of the IBM Federal Systems Division was here until it was sold to Loral—computer pioneer Harwood G. Kolsky ran it in the early 1960s.

Also of importance is the large tower with the striking 90-foot glass dome just west of downtown at 33rd and Dodge. This is the world headquarters of Mutual of Omaha, a Fortune 1,000 Company known to many of us of a certain age for their sponsorship of "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." (It has been revived on the specialty cable channel Animal Planet [see http://www.wildkingdom.com], so a new generation will benefit from it as well). While admiring the...