John Jasper began his career as an apprentice programmer at SEI right after graduating from high school in 1982. While he left SEI twice, he never strayed far from the Chicago-based software development and technical support company. Last year Jasper returned to SEI, this time as CEO.
During his first stint at SEI, from 1983-1992, Jasper slowly evolved from a "hot-shot geek" programmer to a consultant focused on "enhancing the business." He left SEI the first time to work as lead architect for Navigation Technologies, an SEI spin-off that powers popular driving direction Web sites such as Mapquest and Yahoo Maps.
The most surprising thing about developing mapping software, Jasper says, was that "somebody pretty much had to drive every road in America" to find accurate addresses, turn restrictions, and one- way streets. But thorough preparation is nothing new for Jasper, who stresses the importance of strong tech support.
Q. What does SEI do?
A. SEI was founded in 1969 by Russ Shields to help companies take advantage of technology. We now have two main divisions. One builds software solutions and does consulting.
The other provides technical support and ongoing maintenance for operations like the point-of-sale devices in 8,000 McDonald's. We provide support for a host of software products for 20 or 30 different retail outlets across the country. It's not just maintenance, but it's providing interfaces to the user community to allow them to get their technology issues resolved.
People underestimate the importance of tech support. There are a lot of interesting statistics out there that show that effective back- end support is often the difference between a perceived product launch failure and a perceived success.
Q. You went straight from high school to SEI. Why did you decide not to go to college?
A. I've taken a few classes here and there, but never anything specifically oriented towards a degree, so I guess I'm in that elite crowd with Mr. Gates.
I started programming around age 13. My father was a gambler. He wrote a book about computers and gambling and I wrote a program for his book.
His programs purported to help someone count cards or play the horses or basketball or football or whatever you wanted. I wrote the blackjack application.
He worked for a number of local computer firms, including SEI. Although he left before I started, he probably helped me get my first job here. I was a programmer apprentice, basically a software engineer trainee.
Q. Have you been with SEI continuously?
A. No. I worked at SEI a few times, but my first stint lasted almost a decade. I got most of my early training starting in 1983 and in an SEI start-up called Cellular Billing Systems. We worked with some people from Motorola to develop the first cellular phone systems.
Motorola provided the technology and we worked on systems for billing, customer service, money handling, and all the complexities associated with launching a cellular phone business. We launched in the top 90 U.S. markets in less than two years, which was a very aggressive timeline. Over two years you went from nothing to millions of people subscribing to cellular services.
Q. What are the most important skills that make a really great programmer?
A. Good programmers need a tremendous capacity to manage a large amount of information in their brain in real time. Creativity and flexibility are also incredibly important. If you look at the industry icons, most of them are phenomenally creative people. They may not be brilliant programmers, but they come up with very interesting and innovative solutions to problems that seem either mundane or unsolvable. ...
The great programs run efficiently, quickly, make sense to users and stand the test of time.
Q. How did you move up the food chain at SEI?
A. After working with Cellular Billing Systems, I worked for a variety of clients in the Chicago metro area. I worked for Time-Life for a number of years and became somewhat of a database guru back when Time-Life had one of the larger databases in the world. I was still in my early 20s, younger than most college graduates.
Later, SEI started another initiative called Navigation Technologies, a company that built digital mapping software, and I got involved in that.
Q. Was there a point when you underwent a transition from technologist to businessperson?
A. That transition began around 1987 when I started working with NavTech. I moved away from being a young, hot-shot geek who wanted to do something cool, and started thinking about business implications. It hadn't yet clicked for me that we're here not to build software because it's cool, but we're here to enhance the business. I probably stayed that way for the first eight years of my career.
It wasn't until I got to NavTech the first time that I began to really focus on "what are we doing technologically to help drive the business?"
Q. What was your role with NavTech?
A. I think I had the title of Chief Designer, but I was effectively the lead architect for the overall system. We built the prototype system for most of North America.
Q. How did NavTech get all the map data for its systems, and how did they get it to work?
A. In the mid-1980s, a lot of research was being done on how to help drivers get from Point A to Point B. The first product NavTech built was actually a coin-operated kiosk where you would drop in a quarter, enter your destination and it would print you a set of directions.
The biggest challenge Russ Shields and the other SEI principals found wasn't so much the algorithms. It was getting data that actually worked. Somebody pretty much had to drive every road in America. And quite frankly, it's a very interesting and complex data problem, which is what attracted me because I was still on the tail end of my "It's all about cool technology." Imagine how difficult it is to find accurate addresses, accurate turn restrictions, one-ways, dividers, things that impede a right turn or left turn.
These days, no one really thinks about the complexities behind calculating a route between two points when you use a service like MapQuest or Yahoo Maps. But in 1988, it was an incredibly challenging problem.
Q. Why did you come back to SEI to take on the role of CEO?
A. I had always kept in touch with SEI's founder Russ Shields and we met up when we were both on business trips in Europe. He explained the CEO was leaving, and he asked if I was interested. This was in June 2001.
We're in a challenging environment from an economic perspective right now. But with 33 years of history, we have a great track record and a great client base.
Dave Lundy is president of DL Strategies, a Chicago-based strategic communications firm. He can be reached at dsl@dlstrategies.com
Name: John Jasper
Title: CEO
Company: SEI Information Technology, a software solutions developer and technical support and maintenance provider.
Passion: Skiing and running
John Jasper began his career as an apprentice programmer at SEI right after graduating from high school in 1982. While he left SEI twice, he never strayed far from the Chicago-based software development and technical support company. Last year Jasper returned to SEI, this time as CEO.
During his first stint at SEI, from 1983-1992, Jasper slowly evolved from a "hot-shot geek" programmer to a consultant focused on "enhancing the business." He left SEI the first time to work as lead architect for Navigation Technologies, an SEI spin-off that powers popular driving direction Web sites such as Mapquest and Yahoo Maps.
The most surprising thing about developing mapping software, Jasper says, was that "somebody pretty much had to drive every road in America" to find accurate addresses, turn restrictions, and one- way streets. But thorough preparation is nothing new for Jasper, who stresses the importance of strong tech support.
Q. What does SEI do?
A. SEI was founded in 1969 by Russ Shields to help companies take advantage of technology. We now have two main divisions. One builds software solutions and does consulting.
The other provides technical support and ongoing maintenance for operations like the point-of-sale devices in 8,000 McDonald's. We provide support for a host of software products for 20 or 30 different retail outlets across the country. It's not just maintenance, but it's providing interfaces to the user community to allow them to get their technology issues resolved.
People underestimate the importance of tech support. There are a lot of interesting statistics out there that show that effective back- end support is often the difference between a perceived product launch failure and a perceived success.
Q. You went straight from high school to SEI. Why did you decide not to go to college?
