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midrange.com
Thanks for the notice.
My first job in the field was at Elke. Bob Nelson was always concerned
about his employees.
pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent by: To:
midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
midrange-l-bounces@midra cc:
nge.com Subject: Just a note
to the older folks on the
list
09/14/2004 03:14 PM
Please respond to
Midrange Systems
Technical Discussion
One of the pioneers of packaged software in the midrange community passed
away yesterday at the age of 80. Bob Nelson founded Elke Corporation in
1977 after spending thirty-one years in the construction industry. During
that time, he rose from the job of grease monkey through the equipment
department to the position of general manager of one of the largest
construction companies in the United States. He counted among his friends
and associates the other giants of the industry, names like Bechtel,
Kiewit, Morrison, Knudsen, and the like. Even though he worked in that
rarified atmosphere, he never forgot that he started with grease under his
fingernails. During his tenure at S.J. Groves & Sons, he saw the value of
computerizing the records collected by the company's equipment department.
These records kept track of everything related to a machine, from
acquisition to disposal, with every oil change and overhaul in between
being tracked. Groves Company grew from a $50 million enterprise to $250
million in the ten years after it acquired its first IBM System/360 and
hired a team of programmers to build a maintenance management system. Mr.
Nelson, in addition to his regular duties, chaired the design committee
overseeing the programming efforts.
Following his retirement in 1974, Mr. Nelson saw what IBM was doing in the
midrange computer marketplace, and became convinced that his design could
be made to work for the small to medium business environment, and sold to
customers using the IBM System/32 and its successors. With a friend from a
construction supply business, he co-founded the Elke Corporation. Elke's
sole mission was to produce what is still considered by many the best
maintenance management software system ever written. This software is
still in use at over a thousand locations around the world.
IBM took note of Elke's success by including the firm in its early
business partner programs, and because of it's proximity to Rochester,
Elke participated in the "Silverlake" project beginning in 1987. As we all
know, that project yielded the AS/400 system.
In 1993, SSA decided to add a maintenance management module to its product
line, and acquired the Elke Corporation. As a testament to the product and
the team that Mr. Nelson assembled, many of Elke's former employees still
work for SSA supporting and enhancing the product, and the support line
staff dedicated to the product consistently score some of the highest
marks given to SSA's product support teams.
During his second retirement, Mr. Nelson focused his attention on his
family as a loving husband of Harriet, his wife of fifty-six years, a
caring father of four sons, and a devoted grandfather of nine.
Paul Nelson
Arbor Solutions, Inc.
708-670-6978 Cell
pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx
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