by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, Vice President of MIG for Rebuild America
If any
drone contractor deserves to be the poster boy for drones, and all
they signify, it is Dan (Drone Boy) O'Dowd.
Dan
was already married to Amy Chang and living in Glendale near CalTech,
his alma mater, when he went to work for Glenn Hightower, the owner
of APh Technology Consultants, Pasadena, California. In 1982, with
fellow Cal Tech graduate Carl Rosenberg, Green Hills Software, Inc.,
was founded. This is published widely on the web, but it is not
accurate and a correction has long been in order.
Hightower
and Rosenberg were able to realize their ambition because of a
substantial loan from Glenn Hightower, who had graduated from the
Pasadena university himself in 1972.
Hightower
started his own company, APh Technology Consultants (located in
Pasadena, CA) in 1975. The consultancy was, by reports, successful.
The next year, 1976, the company was hired by Mattel to help design
what became the Intellivision system. The name, APh, was derived from
the Applied Physics courses offered at CalTech.
An
article published in the Cal
Tech News
in April, 1975, describes Aph, as,
“a
firm that was conceived to match Caltech's student talent with
short-term technological needs of business, industry, and the
scientific community. Hightower described the students as
"an enormous reservoir of expertise."
Hightower
continued to pay forward through the University by counseling
students in entrepreneurship, which he was involved with by 1981,
when, according to Caltech, he gave a seminar
with Willis Drake ('70), president of Teleproducts.
It
is very possibly through his work with students and new graduates
that he met Dan O'Dowd originally.
Despite
the representations online at the time Green Hills was founded there
were three original partners, all of whom were founders of Green
Hills Software, Inc., according to the meaning and use of the word.
The three were, Glenn Hightower, who provided the original, and
substantial, funding and worked with the company in various
capacities, Dan O'Dowd, and Carl Rosenberg, each of whom contributed
only sweat equity.
With
Craig Franklin, then my husband, I had dinner with Dan and Amy in
their snug place, very much like married student's housing in 1987.
Glenn was then very active in GHS management. Craig had gone to work
for Green Hills at their Glendale office the year prior, 1986 moving
from his career specialization of compilers and managing technical
teams to providing for Green Hills marketing expertise he in no way
had. Gaining the experience took three years.
But
Dan was determined Craig work for Green Hills because it was through
Craig's recommendations Dan had narrowly avoided the need to return
to Glenn for more capital in 1985. Craig, still at Microtec Research
as Vice President of Engineering and manager for Microtec's XRAY
embedded development tools, had ignored Dan's promotional materials
and read the code directly, sending his comments on to associates.
Microtec was located in northern California.
Craig's
background was deep in software development and embedded systems.
Before moving on to Microtec
Research he had previously been compiler development manager at Daisy
Systems, Data General and Digital Research Corporation. Mr. Franklin
was a software developer for the Apollo moon-landing project at North
American Rockwell, having received a Bachelor of Science in
Mathematics from Stanford University in 1966.
Craig
knew, and never modest, provided regular updates on Green Hills and
their prospects. Green Hills Software was flat lining in profits in
1985, after three years of operations. Located in a suite of offices
in Glendale, it was a small operation, unable to sell their excellent
products because they were flunking on marketing. Dan was looking
glumly at the need to return to Hightower for more funding, which
would, necessarily, dilute his shares.
Dan,
Craig told me, wanted to absolutely control Green Hills. Carl
Rosenberg was 'bought out,' though forced out would be more
appropriate terminology, in the early 90s using the same 'sudden
death partnership agreement which would later be used to get rid of
Glenn.
Official
histories of the corporation also state they were immediately
successful. Nothing could be further from the truth. Source
Contracts
awarded by the U. S. government began in 2003.
Is
Green Hills Software, Inc., hiding something? Yes, many things.
If
you google Green Hills Software, Inc., you cannot find a mention of
Hightower. Rosenberg, who was eliminated much earlier, is mentioned,
but no details on him are available. The corporate histories are, at
best, very incomplete. We will explain the reasons for these
'historical revisions' in this short series of articles, also
exposing the corporate culture of a company which, today, is a major
supplier of the irreplaceable software, the 'brains,' of drone
technology. We focus far too much on the hardware of drones, which
can cause no harm without the operating systems which drive them.
American
government is predicated on the concept of checks and balances.
Clearly, this is not working, but one of the elements which was never
accounted for by the Constitution was the growing influence of
contractors who owe no allegiance to the founding principles of our
nation and are, effectively, invisible and shielded from liability
for their actions by the fiction of corporate personhood.
Because
of his lack of ethics and values Dan O'Dowd had no compunction about
the use of drones against civilians, here and abroad. The money to be
made is enormous.
Dan's
ideas resonance perfectly with those of Attila the Hun or George W.
Bush. He and Craig Franklin have much in common, sharing the same
values and ethics. Their personal goals are different but their
cooperation, along with others in the tightly drawn group, impact
each of us today.
Corporations
are used as shields for liability. We can, and must pierce the
shield to understand these individuals and hold them accountable for
what they have done to our world.
The next segment of the story shows Dan's lack of conscience appeared in other areas as well, not just killing abroad but maiming those he knew personally. US National Library
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