Kathryn Strutynski facts for kids

Kathryn Betty Strutynski (born Latimer) (February 5, 1931 – April 9, 2010) was a smart American woman who worked with numbers and computers. She was a mathematician and a computer scientist. She taught at two universities: Brigham Young University and the Naval Postgraduate School. She also worked at big companies like Pan Am Airways and Bechtel Corporation. Later, she joined Digital Research, where she helped create CP/M. This was one of the very first main computer programs, called an operating system, for small computers.

Early Life and School

Kathryn Betty Latimer was born on February 5, 1931. Her hometown was Nephi, in Utah, USA. Her parents were Andrew Hans Latimer and Henriette Norton.

In 1953, Kathryn finished her first degree in mathematics. She studied at Brigham Young University. After graduating, she taught in Utah for two years.

Her Career Journey

In the early 1950s, Kathryn moved to San Francisco. She started working at Pan Am Airways. She helped with research there. When her boss left, she became in charge of all the charter bids for Pan Am's Western Division. Pan Am later moved its main offices to New York. Kathryn was offered to move, but she decided to stay in San Francisco.

After Pan Am, Kathryn worked at McGraw-Hill. She also worked in the estimating department at Bechtel Corporation. This company decided to buy a large computer, called a mainframe computer. Kathryn was sent to learn everything about these computers from IBM. In 1952 and 1953, she built the company's first system to find information in a database. Ten engineers worked with her on this project. They had to rent computer time because the company did not own a mainframe yet. This database system was used for ten years. In 1958, she married Alfred Waldemar Strutynski.

Kathryn's husband moved to Monterey, California. He got a job at RTT. They lived in a place called Carmel Valley Village. In 1967, Kathryn started working at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). At the same time, she also earned a master's degree in computer programming. At NPS, Kathryn was responsible for the VM operating system. Another computer expert, Gary Kildall, also taught at NPS. He was very interested in operating systems too. They became good friends. They studied and made changes to the IBM VM-360 and 370 systems together.

Working at Digital Research

Kathryn Strutynski left NPS around 1978 or 1979. She became the fourth person to work at Digital Research, Inc.. This company was very important in early computer history. She helped make CP/M-80 work on the Apple II computer. She also worked on other versions of CP/M, like CP/M 2.0 and CP/M 2.2. She helped create DESPOOL, which was a program that let you print things in the background while you did other tasks on the computer. Kathryn was also the project manager for CP/M-86 and Concurrent CP/M-86.

Around 1985, Kathryn went back to work at NPS. She worked at the W. R. Church Computer Center. She helped set up the computer lab there. She taught classes on MS-DOS and Word Perfect. Her job title was Manager of Microcomputing Support and Learning Resource Centers.

In her later years, Kathryn ran her own company. It was called Strutynski Associates in Carmel.

Her Personal Life

Kathryn Latimer met Alfred Waldemar Strutynski at a German dance hall. They got married in 1958. They moved to Carmel because her husband started working at RTT. Kathryn then worked for the Naval Postgraduate School and later at Digital Research.

Her Final Years

Kathryn Strutynski's husband was in the hospital in March 2010. She passed away three weeks later on April 9, 2010. She was 79 years old. She died at her daughter's home in Calgary. Her husband passed away two days after her.