DATA CORP. DELVES IN STRANGE WORKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400330073-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 1999
• Sequence Number: 73
• Publication Date: October 1, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

070
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.. Noted Footballer
Of Dayton Firm
Heads Area Unit
By CITARLES COVELL
Star Business writer
of the early '195os,+is doing quite
a different brand of quarter-
backing in Arlington today.
If you have forgotten, Vann
once was called a ball-handling
Houdini and rated by the. late
Coach Earl Blaik as "one of the
two best passers I have, ever
seen at West Point."
Peter J. Vann needs to be a
magician these days. lie is the
eastern division manager for a
Dayton (Ohio) company that
delves into such seemingly di-
verse subjeots as image analysis
land physical optics, the photo-
graphic sciences, computer tech-
nology and ? testing and evalua-
tion.
Actually, the company welds
these tools into a cohesive unit
for work both secret and non-
secret. "Basically," . Vann ex-
plains, "we are in the business
of intelligence, surveillance and
.reconnaissance, about 70 percent
of it for . the military and 30
percent commercial."
Name Changed
The company is. Data Corp.,
which has 16 acres ;in the center
of a 43-acre research park in
Dayton and recently opened a
Houston division, as well as the
Arlington division.
Data Corp. was formed in 1955
under the name of Systems De-
velopment Corp. by Lysle D.
Cahill, the president, and Wil-
liam F. Gorog, chairman of the
board. Gorog is also a West
Point graduate and both are spe-
cialists in aerial reconnaissance
equipment.
In 1961 the company name was
changed to Data Corp. to better
describe its association with all
types of data handling..
Vann was graduated frorr4
West Point in 1956. Subsequently
a' served in the 'Army both as
NVAS{IINGTOIN ST'P.
OCT 1 1967 STATINT
H. Giering, the computer man-
ager. A former Army officer and
a graduate of the University of
Arizona, he most recently was
assigned to the Defense Intelli-
gence Agency to develop an in-
formation storage and retrieval
system for intelligence data. ?
Quito apart from its national
defense interests, Data Corp.
has developed an information
retrieval system that Vann says
eliminates the need for micro-
film in storing records, copies of
newspapers or similar material.
Called (Data) Central, it al-
lows the user to search large
volumes of information, magnet-
ically stored, to obtain answers
to questions which are structured
in an English-like format.
? For example, Data Corp. has
been conducting a test for the
Ohio State Bar Association by
programming into its computers
all of the syllabi of the Ohio
Supreme Court decisions since
the state's highest court began
recording them in 1853.
The syllabi are the headnotes
or abbreviated statements of the
law that preceded every written,
opinion of the Supreme Court:.
The test has required the com-
puters to store some 150 million
characters and make them in-
stantly available through its:
"random access" memory sys
tem.
Could Aid Lawyers
Francis L. Dale, president of
the bar association, said that
if the test was successful and
enough Ohio lawyers showed
interest in the program,.
"push-button law" would be'
available in Ohio within a year.
The next step would he to
store the estimated 400 million
characters and 80 million words
contained in the hundreds of vol-
umes of Ohio court decisions in
the computers.
Then, an attorney in Cleve-
land, faced with a knotty prob-
lem, could pick up a telephone,
pose his question to a computer
in Dayton by giving a, "key".
word, and locate any court deci-
sions having a bearing.on the
matter.,,
ministrative assistant, was with :
Approved FortRdUfto02@0@/08J26 ' CIA-RDP75-00001 R000400330073-8
'Newest -addition is is and
-Star Photographer Francis Routt
Peter J. Vann, eastern manager for Data Corp., watches Richard E.
Swing, chief scientist, tackle an optical problem at the company's new
division headquarters in Arlington.
an airborne infantry officer and
as a pilot. Later he was with the
AC Electronics Division of Gen-
eral Motors and Litton Indus-
tries, joining Data Corp. in Au-
gust, 1966.
Division Is Starting
Currently his division is just
getting started in offices and
laboratories on the top floor of
the Atlas Machine and Iron
Works building at 1254 Jefferson
Davis Highway. So far there are
only five employes, most of
them either formerly with the
360-40 systems presently operat-
ing at Dayton.
Swing, a graduate of Bucknell
and formerly with Itek Corp.,
came to Data Corp. after sev-
oral years with the CIA. -Mrs.
entral Intelligence Agency or
the Defense Intelligence Agency.
But Vann predicts. that in six
months there will be 30 em-
ployes and in a year about 60.
First installation was a preci-
sion optical machine on which
ichard E. Swing, chief scien-
tist, has been conducting studies
of the spectrum. After that will
come a photographic laboratory
and an IBM System 360-40 com-
puter equipped with remote tele-
processing equipment which will
be a duplicate of two identical
1/9thel Lee Harris, Vann's ad-
STATINTL