Cornell Business

Issue date: 11/5/00 Section: People

“Everything Dick Conway touches becomes successful,” is a common statement I have heard from those who know him or have worked with him. What is it that drives this visionary, who is the “Father of all Immersions”? In order to answer this question, we must trace his contributions to Cornell and understand his vision for the future.
Dick Conway had three different faculty appointments so far in his life, Industrial Engineering ’56, Computer Sciences ’65, and JGSM ’84. During that time, he brought the first mainframe computer to Cornell, started CIT, wrote Xcell (1st GUI commercial simulation package), created the PL-C computer language (used by 250 universities countrywide), published a series of books with David Greis called Programming for Poets (long before the Dummies series), operated his own resource planning company C-Way, and invented the Immersion concept.
How is it that one man can accomplish so many impressive deeds? Steve Worona, CIT director, asserts that “Dick takes a forward looking perspective at the issues, whether it is in programming, manufacturing, or business, and finds ways to make them accessible to students.” Students at Cornell have been fortunate enough to reap the benefits from Dick Conway’s ability to innovate in cutting edge technology. Although Dick retired for the second time in 1999, for a life of sports car racing and deep ocean sailing, the calling to come back to JGSM to spearhead the E-business Immersion was irresistible.
John Elliot played a critical role in drawing Dick back into the fold, as he explained that “Dick Conway understands how to build immersions from the ground up,” and as such, he was a natural choice for the E-Business Immersion. The new E-Business Immersion promises to be significantly different from last year’s E-Business Intensive. One major goal of the new immersion is to help students increase total knowledge in using technology to manage, by involving a cross-departmental teaching tag team consisting of an Internet evangelist, security guru, economic oracle, and fiber optics expert. Dick Conway’s vision is that “within five years, everything will be taught in an E-Business world.” Those students with the foresight to take advantage of this new immersion would surely have a major advantage over their peers, and besides how often does one get the opportunity to learn from a living legend?

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