GENEALOGY TECHNOLOGY.

• Author: Beers, Heather
• Position: Brief Article

At age 8, Michael T. Andrews was determined to win big: $25,000 for the lucky listener with the winning bingo card. But keeping track of the local radio station's 600 bingo cards was tough -- so he built a computer to monitor the game.

Andrews' first analog computer consisted of cables, transistors and diodes harvested from phone company garbage and his dad's Lionel train repair shop. Although the game ended up being a gimmick with no prize awarded, it provided a good education for the enterprising youngster.

His high-tech education continued when he enrolled in the University of Denver's computer design courses while still in high school. From there, Andrews attended MIT, earning a bachelor's degree in computer science. After graduation he joined Bell Laboratories, where he was instrumental in bringing the Unix operating system, which supports today's Internet, to the forefront. His next move involved heading the Unix international steering committee, traveling the globe to unite major companies like Sony, Hitachi and Hewlett Packard in developing a cohesive Unix system.

At Amdahl Corporation in Silicon Valley, Andrews continued making major industry breakthroughs, accomplishing things people said could never be done. Ever hungry for new challenges, Andrews says, "I decided I wanted to go off and solve a very big business application problem with the use of Unix. The biggest one I could think of was bringing the 44 billion people who've ever lived on earth together."

The best place to tackle that challenge? The LDS Church's Family History Department, where Andrews became director. After helping update the church's genealogical...