The once and present developers of the Unified File System.

2005


Charlotte Nester
Director, Database Marketing
Stat jockey. Began at the Digest in 1981. Always seeking the top 5% of names for a campaign, based on scores derived from test results. Her assent had to be given before the Unified File System could be replaced.


Joe Devanny
Director, Name Selection, Database Marketing
Began in 1990 as a senior analyst on the Customer Information Management System, designed to succeed the Unified File System. Set up the final selection of names and sent the instructions for the last pass at the 35-year-old archive for keeping records on customers and mailing them promotions.


Richard Lawsky
Director, Data Enhancement and Preparation Services
Lawsky's first contact with Reader's Digest in 1987 was to apply for a job in the first campaign to replace the Unified File System. Maintains standards for setting and monitoring the quality of names and addresses on hand. Advises marketers and statisticians about relevance of information stored about customers.


Rob Hilliard
Vice President, Customer Technologies
Came to the home of Pegasus from Andersen Consulting, in the effort to salvage early attempts to replace the Unified File System. Helped the company break away from the system as the only way it could execute marketing and order fulfillment, by giving fulfillment operations to an outside contractor. Led development of the Marketing Systems Replacement, which came online in May.


Jeffrey S. Spar
Chief Information Officer
Likens the move off the Unified File System to changing engines on a 747 while in flight. Responsible for leading the changeover to the new Marketing Systems Replacement and the company's global information-technology function. A former management consultant for McKinsey & Co., Spar likes to open bottles with his teeth.


Aiyi Wang
Associate Director, Database Marketing
The last keeper of the faith. Oversaw and maintained the Unified File System in its last weeks of operation, through the final pass in May.


Kari Regan
VP, Database Marketing Services
Came on board at end of 1991, in midst of "CIMS Zero"—the second effort to replace the Unified File System. That 100-person effort led to the creation of some tools, but it wasn't until a decade later, starting in 2002, that she and Hilliard led the successful effort to retire the UFS, which occurred May 12. Regan retired a week later.

1969


Robert P. Otten
Project Manager
A blocking and tackling kind of guy; Moore's No. 2. Claims to have been the systems developer who originally came up with the idea to merge databases. Felt like a "pig in mud" with the capacity of an IBM computer to store 64,000 characters of information.


Kent Rhodes
Vice President of Operations
Principal driver of bringing computing to the Digest in a concerted fashion. Signed off on the plan to create the Unified File System, and nurtured its development. Rhodes became president and chief operating officer in 1975, CEO in 1976, chairman in 1977.


John Moore
Director of Systems
The "genius" behind the idea that not only should the Digest combine all of its names and addresses in one database, but that it should include all records of marketing and payment activities as well. Known as having a taste for spirits.

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