Computer Histories Page XI

Dr. Robert Lechner was a Westinghouse Scholar, and earned a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Melon University, and a PhD. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. After serving two years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, he worked for GTE Sylvania, Honeywell, and C.S. Draper Laboratories before becoming a Professor at Northeastern University. Bob then received his tenure appointment at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, where he taught Computer Science and helped create their Graduate degree programs in Computer Science.  Dr. Lechner was responsible for several important early papers on switching theory, and later helped shape the evolution of software engineering as its own discipline and created the Block Diagram Editor (BDE) tool.