Sarasota PC Monitor
Get to Know our Members (10/03)
Bob Thommes
by Pete Theisen
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.Dr. Bob Thommes was born in Chicago, Illinois a number of years ago, while there were still neighborhood stores. His father owned the local neighborhood butcher and grocery store. Young Bob enjoyed playing 16" (Chicago style) softball but his father wanted him to spend time delivering groceries and packages of meat. Bob learned very early how to ride a bicycle on frozen snow packed streets, while breaking hardly any eggs. Although his family lived on the North side within walking distance of Cubs park he has been a White Sox Fan his entire life.
Bob went to an "Urban University", De Paul, at a time when people took streetcars and the "elevated" to get College. After his undergraduate years, Bob taught at De Paul Academy (High School) while completing his MS degree at De Paul University. He then attended Northwestern University in Evanston, IL for his Doctoral studies.
After receiving his Ph.D. in Embryology, Bob returned to De Paul University as a Faculty Member in the Department of Biological Sciences where he moved through the ranks from Instructor to Full Professor including a stint as Departmental Chair. Dr. Bob taught undergraduate as well as graduate courses and also carried out research, which was published in the field of fetal endocrinology.
While still an undergraduate Dr. Bob became a Weekend Warrior. Dr. Bob joined the U.S. Army Reserves and served fourteen years in a Medical Reserve Unit, the 361st Medical General Laboratory. Dr. Bob left the reserves with the rank of Captain.
De Paul as a non-public institution started necessary economic cutbacks by limiting secretarial services and increasing teaching loads just as commercial computers were first coming onto the market. At the time, a "younger" staff member encouraged Dr. Bob to purchase one, as the man put it, to encourage other "older" faculty to become computer literate. This was before the advent of the IBM PC. He recommended an Atari 8 bit computer for $800.00.
Dr. Bob says, "Not knowing any better I purchased one and soon discovered that with a $600 Brother printer and a $100.00 green screen monitor I could produce perfect manuscripts for publication with a (by present standards) very primitive word processor."
The Atari was soon followed by a Digital Rainbow computer purchased with an interest- free loan from the University. At the time it was Dr. Bob's pride and joy because it had dual processors, a Zilog Z-80 and an Intel 8088 which ran two operating systems, CPM and DOS respectively. Dr. Bob concluded that "Computers saved my professional life by allowing me to effectively "number crunch", prepare manuscripts and draw graphs in a much shorter period of time."
After 31 years at DePaul, Dr. Bob took an early retirement in 1987 and moved to Sarasota, and South Gate the following year. In a short time he had volunteered at Mote Marine Laboratory where he held a position as adjunct Scientist for about eight years and worked in the laboratory of Dr. Carl Luer.
In March of 1992 both Bob and Joan Adams, his neighbor, were told of a computer club by Dr. Ed Zolik, also a former De Paul Faculty member, and they went to the SPCUG meeting at the Brookside School. They both joined and within a meeting or two both volunteered to work with the Badge Committee. Dr. Bob stayed with the Badge Committee and Joan moved on to Membership. Recently, Dr. Bob accepted the position of SIG Chairman and is now responsible for managing the computer education activities in SPCUG.
He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors and participates in a number of essential SPCUG committees.
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Copyright 2003. This article is from the October 2003 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.
See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.