Insights from a Pioneer: How computing changed over 50 years in IF

Join us for a talk from a local computing pioneer Wendell Richardson whose career spans the early days of time-sharing through modern safety-critical systems.
Born in Rigby in 1940 and a 1959 graduate of Bonneville High School, our speaker earned a BS in Mathematics in 1966 and began work at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS). There, he developed software for physics research and later helped run a computer time-sharing service from 1972 to 1985.
He went on to develop software for commercial nuclear reactor safety systems at Energy Inc. (1985), and at Idaho National Laboratory (1989–2006), where he worked on nuclear regulatory and fuel rod certification systems. After retiring, he continued as a consultant through 2010.
This talk offers a firsthand look at the evolution of software engineering across four decades—from shared mainframes to high-reliability nuclear systems.

Please come join us for this unique insight from Wendell into the history of computing in the Idaho Falls area and how the industry has changed dramatically over the past several years.