News & Events 2003-2004

Blair Hosts Herman Hollerith Lecture

A Herman Hollerith lecture was presented on April 13, 2004, in Cowan Auditorium. The presentation featured Christopher F. McConnell, principal of The Founders Group, based in Wayne, Penn.

This lecture series, named for entrepreneur and engineer Herman Hollerith (inventor of the punch card), continues with Mr. McConnell, an experienced entrepreneur and technologist. In 1984 he co-founded CFM Technologies, Inc., a semiconductor capital equipment company for which he served as president & CEO, then as chairman. CFM grew to employ 420 people worldwide as it reached sales of $75 million. The company went public in 1996, and issued a secondary public offering in 1998. In that same year Mr. McConnell helped found a second company, Mi8 Corporation.

The OnSight (TM) System from Mi8 is a turnkey hardware platform for reliable and secure messaging, such as Microsoft Outlook/Exchange. Mr. McConnell served as the company’s board chairman from 1998 to 2002. He currently serves, or has served, as board chairman or director for several other companies including Wireless Xcessories Group, V-SPAN, Kenna Technologies, and Point Five Technologies.

Mr. McConnell also assists Philadelphia-area entrepreneurs through his role as principal of The Founders Group, an organization that helps launch new technology-based ventures with IPO potential.

Recently, Mr. McConnell CO-founded Adondo Corporation, a new enterprise with the goal of redefining the relationship between a user and his or her own PC.

Christopher McConnell, daughter Claire ’05 and Mr. & Mrs. Hollerith at dinner.

Mr. McConnell started his career with the Dow Chemical Company. He graduated with highest distinction from Dartmouth College in 1975, received a master’s degree in chemical engineering, summa cum laude, from Purdue University, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr. McConnell holds 17 U.S. patents and a number of related international patents.

Herman Hollerith, the son of German immigrants, graduated from the Columbia College School of Mines in 1879. He followed one of his professors to Washington, D.C., to work as a special agent on the U.S. Census of 1880. Shortly thereafter, he invented punch cards to help automate the census. These cards were the earliest widely used mechanical system for processing enormous amounts of data.

In 2000, The Economist magazine identified the event of Hollerith’s tabulating machine system as one of the 10 most important events in science and technology in the last 100 years, as it marked the beginning of today’s data processing industry. For more information, call Dr. Martin Miller at 908-362-6121, ext. 5659.

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