Richard B. Lewis, Principal Engineer & Managing Member

BS in Computer Science/Mathematics, 1978, Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas. Post-graduate studies in Mathematics at Stanford University. Active software developer since 1977. Lewis enjoys running, cycling, swimming, cooking, music and reading and has one brother who works as a Design Engineer at Dell. His wife is a contract Web Developer and they have four adult children and one granddaughter. Since 1995, Lewis has called Austin (the "Live Music Capital of the World"), Texas home. When a contract dictates, a second home is established near the customer site.

Background

As is typical with Air Force families, much of his childhood was spent moving from one base to another, including 3 years in Frankfurt, Germany. The Lewis family also lived in Virginia, Massachusetts, and California before settling down in Ruston, Louisiana, where Lewis' father assumed the role of commander of the ROTC detachment at Louisiana Tech University before later retiring to teach engineering. Lewis was interested in mathematics and science and was an avid reader in high school, from which he graduated in three years, taking an early entrance to La. Tech after his junior year. His initial major at Tech was Electrical Engineering. In the course of first-year EE classes, he discovered a DEC PDP/8 computer in a lab, and became instantly enamored with computers. He changed his major to Computer Science in the fall of 1975. In 1976, Lewis transfered to Angelo State University, which had a Computer Science degree program that was attracting national attention because of a NASA grant for a microprocessor lab. The CS program provided a broad introduction to operating systems, compiler theory, and practical applications of microprocessors. Lewis worked with the Intel 8080, Motorola 6800, and Mostek 6502 "KIM" kit. A graduation requirement was to design, build, program and demonstrate a working computer system based on one of these processors, and Lewis finished his 6502 project at 2am the morning it was due. Lewis graduated college in three and a half years.

Early Employment

Upon graduation in 1978, Lewis accepted a position as Engineer at GTE Sylvania in Mountain View, California, where he was granted a Secret security clearance to work on device drivers for the PDP/11 family of minicomputers. Another project involved a "new" processor - the Intel 8085 - and Lewis was sent to Intel's headquarters on Old Ironsides Road to pick up a tube of samples. In 1979, an ASU classmate who was working at Ford Aerospace pursuaded Lewis to join Ford, where he continued to work on classified projects, one of which involved close collaboration with Conic Data Systems (later Loral Space Systems). Conic supplied satellite data processing equipment for the project. After several months of commuting to San Diego, Conic tendered a job offer to Lewis to join them in San Diego, which he did. In 1980, it became apparent that contracting was a better career path, so he launched his first consulting practice in 1981, serving clients in Southern California for several years before returning to Northern California in 1985.

Corporate History

1975 - 1978 Richard Lewis establishes Lewis & Associates (a sole proprietorship) while still in college at Louisiana Tech University. He attracts several clients interested in automating certain business practices. The most notable client is Carrier Air Conditioning, which was at the time attempting to create a computer model for use in residential and commercial estimations. Mr. Lewis created exactly that model in FORTRAN for Carrier and ran the estimates on LA Tech's IBM 360 mainframe.

1979 While employed as a software engineer in the intelligence industry (GTE Government Systems, Ford Aerospace, Loral Space Systems), Mr. Lewis began conceiving a consulting practice to serve the burgeoning industry of startups in California.

1981 - 1985 Mr. Lewis begins a consulting practice as an individual, with clients including Teledyn Ryan, Beckman Instruments, IRS, Red Carpet Realty, and NCR.

1985 - 1990 While working with NCR, that company approached Lewis seeking to obtain software for their new remittance processing transport, the NCR 7770, which stood poised to revolutionize the remittance processing industry with high track speeds, low OCR and MICR error rates, and a multi-pocket sorter capable of offering as many as 40 out-sorts. A deal was struck wherein Lewis would provide the software and NCR would provide the hardware and service. Lewis formed Deltasoft Corporation and began what ultimately would become a multimillion dollar enterprise, with clients scattered across the United States. Deltasoft grew into an unstoppable force in the industry, attending trade shows and startling visitors to its' booth by actually processing their sample remittance documents right in front of them. Most would walk away with a floppy disk of live data. STAR*RPS was born, and there was simply no other company on the planet that could do that!

1990 - 1998 As Deltasoft continued to grow and mature the remittance software, the management team recognized a virtually untouched market: tabletop remittance processing. The NCR 7770 weighed over one thousand pounds and required a forklift to unload; its' cost including Deltasoft software approached $100K. Many regional utilities and small one-branch banks couldn't afford to buy in and were still using lockboxes to process their remittances. Advantages of in-house processing over lockbox would make an affordable tabletop solution an easy sell. The management team decided to expand into hardware engineering, sales and service and so formed a new California corporation named Group ASTL, Inc. The meaning of "ASTL" varies depending on whom you ask and their mood, but one of our favorites is "Applied Systems and Technology Labs." Group ASTL would conduct business as ASTL Systems for the remainder of the corporation's life, with all Deltasoft contracts and clients migrated to the new corporation. The tabletop remittance processor would undergo several years of engineering effort only to meet limited acceptance in the industry. In part, this was due to an onslaught of competition, including directly from NCR and Maverick Microsystems, a former supplier. Since service is mission-critical, ASTL had negotiated service contracts for clients based on a loose-knit community of service providers in the banking industry. Service became the critical issue in the ongoing success of the venture.

1999 Amid widespread fears of "Y2K" (for which ASTL conducted several audits for clients such as Dell), many STAR*RPS clients feared the rollover from 12/31/1999 to 01/01/2000 so ASTL was on standby, despite assurances from Mr. Lewis that his code had been written with this event in mind. As it turned out, one small bug appeared in the first week of January, 2000. A report had the wrong date format on it. The operational software withstood Y2K and ASTL's reputation was intact.

2001 The NCR 7770 hardware platform reached end-of-life and NCR discontinued service and support of it, so our clients were left with the necessity to either return to lockbox, or procure new equipment from another vendor. At the time, ASTL management decided to concurrently discontinue the tabletop remittance processor product line, mostly due to difficulties with our contract service organization. Mr. Lewis returned to his consulting practice, doing business under the ASTL Systems name.

The Future Decades of providing consulting services to clients revealed another sustainable market: providing engineering services to past clients as well as new clients, leveraging on the lessons learned over. This is our story, and you may very well be part of our future. We sincerely hope so!