Elmer Easton Named to Virginia Tech's Academy of Engineering Excellence
BLACKSBURG, Va., Oct. 8, 2007 -- Elmer Easton, a 1947 mechanical engineering alumnus of Virginia Tech, is one of ten new inductees into the College of Engineering's Academy of Engineering Excellence at the university. Only 71 alumni out of the more than 45,000 who are currently living, are members of this prestigious group.
Elmer Easton, middle, accepts his induction into
Virginia Tech's College of Engineering Academy of
Engineering
Excellence. To his left is Richard Benson,dean of the college,
and to his right is Ken Ball, head of Virginia Tech's Department
of Mechanical Engineering.
"Mr. Easton is indeed one of our most accomplished alumni, having spent much of his career as an entrepreneur, and as one who continues to enjoy letting other people do their best work," said Richard Benson, dean of the college.
Easton and his wife Evelyn reside in Pacific Palisades, Cal.
At the very young age of 22, Easton had an exceptionally responsible job. As a mechanical engineer, his duties included insuring that one of the first atomic reactors, located at Brookhaven, N.Y., was fully stocked with the fluid handling inventory it needed to operate efficiently and safely. He says he wasn't nervous because he had survived a relevant Virginia Tech engineering course with Professor J. Lucien Jones.
"As a first quarter sophomore in mechanical engineering (ME), I walked into Professor Jones' class, engineering fundamentals, and he had some 30 "plumbing things" sitting on a table. We were supposed to write down what they were. We had no clue!" Easton laughingly recalled.
Towards the end of that academic quarter, Professor Jones arranged a class trip to the Virginia Tech Power Plant where the students, literally crawling around on their hands and knees, had to identify "things" he had shown them on that first day in the classroom. "We had to write down the serial numbers and tell how they were used. It was part of our final exam," Easton said.
"Without Jones' course, I could not have done the Brookhaven job despite four years of college and one year in graduate school," the Virginia Tech honors graduate added. This "emphasis on fundamentals" was a major lesson that Easton says he gained from his Virginia Tech educational experience, and is largely what kept the New York native linked to his alma mater ever since.
The son of a designer of high pressure piping, Easton found his father's job fascinating, especially when it took the senior Easton to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1940s when the Manhattan Project was underway. So, the idea of studying engineering was nourished early in his life.
Before he graduated, Easton's studies were interrupted as were most of the men his age in the 1940s. As a first quarter junior, he left Virginia Tech for a stint in the Navy, and was involved in the maintenance of all of the Navy's ground and ship electronics. He was stationed in Chicago, Gulfport, Miss., and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Upon his return to Virginia Tech, his work in the Navy turned out to be fortuitous. "As a freshman, I had gotten mad at an upperclassman, and had thrown him in the lake, and so I got a D in military. I couldn't graduate until the Dean intervened. Dean Norris decided to give me an A for my work in the Navy to counteract the D," Easton said. He was then awarded his diploma and went directly to graduate school at Columbia University in N.Y. where he earned his master's degree in management in two semesters.
He remained in New York, and from 1948 until 1950, he worked as an engineer for Vanton Pump, a developer of specialty pumps including one of which was used in the earliest heart-lung machines available for open heart surgery. In 1950 Easton moved to the Curtiss-Wright Electronics Division where he worked on the development of analog computers in flight simulators and in high thrust engine controls.
Evelyn Easton pins a boutonniere on her husband Elmer's lapel prior
to his induction into Virginia Tech's
College of Engineering's
Academy of Engineering Excellence.
Easton is one of only 71 members
in the academy out of some 45,000 living alumni of the college.
His reputation grew, and Lear Inc., recruited him to California in 1952. Working directly with William Lear, Easton, now 25, was placed in charge of the Marketing Management Division, upgrading standard commercial aircraft to corporate jets and selling them.
Easton now dealt with "the captains of industry" selling Lear jets to such customers as the then Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza. As Easton attempted to sell the Shah, also a pilot, a Learstar 10 passenger corporate aircraft, he turned the keys to the cockpit over to Reza. "He flew me out of Miami and over the Atlantic. We were only 10 to 15 feet above the water. A guy from the State Department was also in the plane as we literally spun over the waves. It's not as dangerous as it sounds," Easton recalled, but not convincingly.
After five years of such adventures for Easton, Wyle Laboratories of Los Angeles came knocking on his door, luring him to join its marketing and general management team. At that time, 1957 to 1968, Wyle was one of the largest independent laboratories for military and civilian aerospace functional and environmental testing. For a period of time, Easton worked with yet another historical figure, Werner Von Braun, considered to be one of the greatest rocket scientists in history. They met at a test facility in Huntsville, Ala., where NASA centered its rocket development activities. "Chris Kraft, a senior when I was a freshman, was - in effect, my customer."
Easton's career took a significant twist in 1968 when he decided to launch his own business, Compucorp. Founded before the era of Microsoft, Easton's company developed, licensed, and manufactured proprietary microprocessor-based desk-top computers and word processing systems. "I wanted to do my own thing and I was familiar with this technology. We built and sold hundreds of thousands of machines worldwide and had as many as 800 employees."
After 17 years, Easton closed Compucorp because IBM had introduced its PC. "I did the arithmetic and it was impossible to compete with IBM. They took over the world of PCs and put a lot of companies out of business. IBM also contributed mightily to the emergence of Microsoft," he explained.
Undaunted, Easton then opened what he calls "a little boutique" called Three D Graphics, a producer of business graphics, financial and predictive analysis software, in 1985. "I started it by acquiring some technology that I thought was interesting and potentially exciting. I wasn't sure what the markets would be, but I ended up licensing the technology and still do to a number of leading business intelligence companies such as Oracle and IBM. The fun is in the development of new products." But he cautioned, "Developing software is like making movies. Most movies lose money. No one makes a movie intentionally to lose money."
Three D Graphics' latest product, a brainchild of Easton's, is ACUMEN4xl, introduced in 2006. Easton conceived of the idea to produce a new suite of financial analysis software that links his proprietary modeling technology to Excel and then turned the idea over to his staff to develop. "My idea of a bright individual is one who, when given an assignment, comes up with something better than you asked for, and that has happened with ACUMEN4xl and many other times throughout my business history", Easton said.
Semi-retired, Easton and his wife Evelyn of 50 years, continue to live in Pacific Palisades, Cal. They have two children, Allan and Lisa.