THANKSGIVING POINT: PAST AND FUTURE.

AuthorWashburn, Mike L.
PositionSILICON SLOPES

If necessity is the mother of invention, insight could be called the father of innovation.

Thanksgiving Point was founded in 1995 by one of Utah's original Silicon Slopes inventors and innovators: Alan Ashton, co-founder of WordPerfect.

Like many inventions, WordPerfect began with a simple need. In 1979, a graduate student at Brigham Young University named Bruce Bastian was developing a computer program to display the BYU marching band's step-by-step choreography for halftime shows. This impressive effort caught the attention of BYU computer science professor Alan Ashton, who was at the time working on his own word processing software project.

Bastian and Ashton teamed up to design a first-of-its-kind word processing solution with an elegant interface, user-friendly features and excellent logic. As is always the case when a big idea emerges, naysayers warned the team that their work was pointless. They frequently heard commentary like, "Word processing will never take off," and, "The future of computing is spreadsheets."

The naysayers were wrong. WordPerfect rapidly became a standard in the DOS market and by release 5.1 in 1989, WordPerfect was the market leader. It was a powerful tool also praised for its minimalistic "look of spareness" and clean display. After almost two decades of market domination, the privately held WordPerfect was acquired by Novell for $1.4 billion.

After selling WordPerfect, Alan and his wife, Karen, wanted to find a way for their community to benefit from their family's success. An avid gardener, Karen requested land where she could build a world-class garden, something like the grand estates they had visited in their travels. Alan took her at her word and on Valentine's Day in 1995, Alan surprised Karen with 700 acres of land at the Point of the Mountain that would become Thanksgiving Point. The name was chosen to share the spirit of gratitude that would become the foundation of the experiences at Thanksgiving Point.

Again, there were naysayers. People didn't understand what it was that the Ashtons were trying to accomplish. Karen's clear vision led the construction and creation of the Ashton Gardens followed by the Museum of Ancient Life and Farm Country. She wanted to build a place for kids to run on the lawn and families to dig for fossils. They wanted to bring the best experiences from around the world to their neighbors in Lehi and beyond. Experiences that people travel to--all right here in Utah.

The...

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