Head, Robert V

Robert V. Head was an information systems specialist, information technology consultant, and editor. Head received a B.A. in Government from George Washington University in 1952 and in the same year went to work for General Electric, Inc. (GE) in its Business Training Course in Schenectady. He left GE for a brief period to work as a programmer for Univac in Detroit, before rejoining the company’s Computer Department in 1957 as Manager of Deposit Accounting Systems, where he directed programming for GE’s ERMA (Electronic Recognition Method of Accounting) Banking System.

In 1959, Head joined IBM in New York City as a senior planning representative where he supervised development of data format and program specifications for the American Airlines SABRE System. In 1961 he transferred to the Data Processing Division as a senior systems engineer in charge of the IBM Systems Engineering effort at Eastern Airlines. In 1962 he assisted in coordinating the Advanced Systems Course for IBM’s Systems Research Institute, and was appointed to the IBM Systems Research Institute staff in the same year.

Head left IBM in 1963 to become vice president and manager of the systems planning division at Security First National Bank, where he stayed for two years. From 1965-1966, he worked as a manager of Advanced Business Systems at the accounting firm of Touche, Ross, Bailey & Smart. He left in 1966 to serve for one year as manager of Management Information Technology at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) in El Segundo, California, where he assisted in new business development.

In 1967, Head left CSC and, with Dom Nigro, founded Software Resources Corporation (SRC). SRC’s mission was to build and market a portfolio of high quality software application packages by acquiring the marketing rights from computer users who had developed the applications for their own use. This business model turned out to be difficult to implement because it required not only marketing the software packages to customers but also convincing potential contributors of products that they should entrust them to SRC for marketing at a reasonable return. Undercapitalized and under pressure from investors to achieve profitability on an overly ambitious schedule, SRC was sold to Programming Sciences Corporation (PSC) of New York City in 1969. (Source: Software History Center Web site.)

PSC combined their contract programming activities with SRC to create a new company called Consolidated Software, Inc. Head served as executive vice president of Consolidated Software until late 1969 and on the company’s board of directors until February 1970.

After spending some time working as an independent information systems consultant and author, Head entered government service in 1971 as an information resources management executive with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). He served at the USDA for fourteen years, where his positions included assistant director of the Office of Automated Systems and deputy director of the Office of Information Resources Management. Under USDA sponsorship, he served as a Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution from 1980-1981.

In 1985, Head left government service to work as an information systems consultant and an editor and journalist for information technology magazines. He was a contributing editor of the Journal of Systems Management, 1967-1971, Government Computing News 1985-1990, Datamation, 1965-1971, and Government Data Systems, 1980-1983, as well as Government Imaging, which he co-founded in 1992. From 1996-1997, he edited INFORM (journal of AIIM). He is the author of more than 200 articles and seven books, including Real-Time Business Systems (1964) and Strategic Planning for Information Systems (1982).

In 1981 he founded and served as president and principal consultant for CAPIT (Company for the Analysis and Planning of Information Technology). Head also served as president, editor, and publisher of FEDINFO, The Federal Information Systems Marketing Service, from 1989-1992.

Head’s service to professional organizations has included his tenure as a president of the Society for Information Management, of which he was also a founder, 1969-1971; and as a national lecturer for the Association for Computer Machinery, 1966 and 1970.

From the guide to the Robert V. Head papers, 1956-1998, (University of Minnesota Libraries. Charles Babbage Institute [cbi])