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| author | Charles.Forsyth <devnull@localhost> | 2006-12-22 20:52:35 +0000 |
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| committer | Charles.Forsyth <devnull@localhost> | 2006-12-22 20:52:35 +0000 |
| commit | 46439007cf417cbd9ac8049bb4122c890097a0fa (patch) | |
| tree | 6fdb25e5f3a2b6d5657eb23b35774b631d4d97e4 /lib/ebooks/oebtest/business.html | |
| parent | 37da2899f40661e3e9631e497da8dc59b971cbd0 (diff) | |
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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/oebtest/business.html b/lib/ebooks/oebtest/business.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d94fe08d --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/oebtest/business.html @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//EN" + "http://openebook.org/dtds/oeb-1.0/oebdoc1.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/x-oeb1-document; charset=utf-8" /> +<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/x-oeb1-css" href="DrBillBio.css" /> +<title>Bill Wattenburg’s Background: Business</title> +</head> + +<body> + +<h1>Business</h1> + +<p>In 1966, Bill Wattenburg and physicist Donald Glaser +(winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1960, for the invention of the bubble chamber) +formed a company called Berkeley Scientific Laboratories (BSL) which grew to a thirty-million +dollar a year enterprise within three years. Wattenburg served as president of the company until +1970. The scientific staff at BSL directed by Wattenburg received major NASA contracts for +work on the spacecraft guidance computer for the Apollo man-to-the-moon project and +Department of Defense contracts for the computer systems for the Navy’s Poseidon missile. BSL later developed +a number of very successful commercial products, including the first small medical data computer +systems used in hospitals around the world to automate and improve medical testing procedures +in clinical and radiology laboratories.</p> + +<p>Berkeley Scientific Laboratories was purchased by Tracor, Inc., a high-technology +conglomerate in Austin, Texas, in 1969. Wattenburg became a major stockholder in +Tracor. He resigned as president of BSL and sold his substantial interests in Tracor in 1970. Tracor stock +dropped considerably over the next few years. He later reinvested heavily in Tracor in 1975 +shortly before it entered a long and profitable growth period over the following ten years under +the leadership of president Frank McBee, a friend of Wattenburg’s. Wattenburg sold all his +interests in Tracor again when the company was taken over by Admiral Bobby Inman in the eighties.</p> + +<p><i>(The following comes from investment banker Faris Chesley, The Chicago Corporation, +Chicago, who has known Bill Wattenburg since 1967.)</i></p> + +<p>In 1969 Wattenburg and a group of physicians and medical specialists started a company +in San Francisco called Comprehensive Health Services (CHS), later renamed Comprehensive +Computer Systems, which developed health screening programs for professional groups such as +the California Teachers Association and operated a large clinical laboratory in San Francisco. He +joined the company as director of research in 1972 and developed another very successful product +line of medical computer systems for radiology which was marketed worldwide by General +Electric Co. CHS also acquired Bakte-Bennet Laboratories, a major supplier of growth media to +hospitals and clinical laboratories on the west coast.</p> + +<p>Wattenburg and his technical staff at CHS developed a unique system of “marked-sense” +Medical documents that allow a radiologist to report his full diagnostic findings by simply +marking a few spots on one of a series of special diagnostic reporting forms. We have attached +one of these “Raport” forms to this report. General Electric Medical +Systems division invested over eight million dollars in this development from 1972 to 1976.</p> + +<p>The reader will find the following explanation much easier to understand by first +examining the radiology report form and computer-generated radiology report attached.</p> + +<div class="image"> +<img src="raport.png" height="100%" /> +</div> + +<p>The computer-readable forms they developed cover the full human anatomy with pictorial diagrams +showing the areas of interest to a radiologist. Each color-code form also contains a set of +symbols that describe almost all qualifying statements that a radiologist would normally dictate in +a report of his examination of an X-ray film.</p> + +<p>Wattenburg cautioned us that the original idea for all this came from Dr. Richard +Mani, a young radiologist at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center who later worked +with CHS. Several major computer companies and the U.C. computer center staff had told Dr. +Mani that his idea was not workable.</p> + +<p>Wattenburg and his staff worked for two years to build the computer hardware and special +programs that could read the marked-sense documents and produce medical prose in the +computer-generated diagnostic reports that would be both accurate and pleasing to radiologists.</p> + +<p>General Electric sold hundreds of these small computer systems to major hospitals and +radiology groups around the world from 1975 to 1980. The product line was sold to National +Computer Systems, Minneapolis, in 1980.</p> + +<p>National Computer Systems bought Comprehensive Computer Systems CHS) from Wattenburg and his group in 1979. +National Computer Systems was the world’s biggest supplier +of marked-sense computer equipment and technology. (They still were in 1990. NCS supplies most +of the multiple choice forms and data processing for schools and educational testing services +world wide.) Wattenburg became a major stockholder in National Computer Systems.</p> + +<p>Wattenburg was doing <a href="TalkRadio.html">talk radio on KGO</a> and <a href="television.html">television +shows</a> on nights and weekends throughout this period from 1972 on.</p> + +</body> +</html> |