Affiliation: Information Services
Tom Yates Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Mike Dicianna.
February 10, 2016
Tom Yates (b. 1927) was among the very first individuals to be hired as a computer
programmer by the state of Oregon. Trained in mathematics and intending to become
a teacher, Yates instead discovered a love of computers in the mid-1950s. In 1957,
the state hired Yates to fill the newly created position of Electronic Data Processing
programmer, and over the course of the next five years he wrote programs that supported
the functions of multiple governmental departments. In 1962, Yates accepted a position
as director of the Statistics department computer lab at Oregon State University,
and he later proved crucial to expansion of computing functions on campus, including
the automation of OSU's class registration process. In 1976, he was named Director
of the OSU Computer Center, a position that he held until his retirement from Oregon
State in 1985. His interview traces his long and pioneering career in computer programming,
and provides institutional memories of the advancement of OSU's computing infrastructure
in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.