| abstract | - Gerald Richard Wagner was born on September 2, 1934 and was raised on a farm near to Norfolk, Nebraska. He is the son of Richard Jacob Wagner and Geneva Hazel Bussey. He has two younger sisters, Shirley Ann and Connie Jean. Through grade 8 Jerry attended school in traditional one room country school houses. Then he attended Norfolk Senior High graduating at age 16. Although he started off as a good student in the early years his high school years were poor scholastically. It just did not interest him. But, his mother insisted that he attend Norfolk Junior College which he did and that’s when his school interest returned. After graduating in 1953 his ambition was to have the best purebred Aberdeen Angus herd of cattle. He was on track towards that goal when he decided to go back to school. The local Vet was someone that he admired and in 1956 he decided to attend the University of Nebraska at Lincoln where he majored in Pre Veterinary medicine. He became a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity [()] and did well scholastically. It was at this time that he met Mary Ann Vrba whom he married in 1959. They later had three children, namely, Michelle Lynn, Kathleen Marie, and Gerald II Upon receiving a BSc degree in 1958 he joined the Marine Corps reserve for 6 months of active duty first at the Marine Corp recruit depot in San Diego and then to Camp Pendleton, California for advanced combat training. The balance of his military obligation was completed in the reserves. Upon returning from the military active duty he accepted a fellowship to pursue a graduate degree in nutrition/biochemistry at the University of Nebraska and received a MSc in 1960. During this time he became interested in experimental statistics and experimental design when it was a relativity new field. Iowa State [www.iastate.edu/] had such a program and he accepted an assistantship there to pursue a PhD. Soon he became a full time instructor/student advisor and graduated in 1964. Upon graduation he accepted a job at Swift & Company in Chicago, Illinois as a research statistician in their R&D labs. Within 3 months he was named head the group. But he soon became more interested in mathematically modeling corporate decision making processes and started one of the countries first corporate Operations Research Groups. It was during his time at Swift corporate headquarters, 115 west Jackson, that he met Bob Brueck the President of MRI Systems in Austin, Texas. () MRI was a management consulting company. Bob convinced Jerry to become their VP of consulting and teach part time at UT Austin in the Operations Research Group, College of Engineering. Jerry, wife Mary and 3 children moved to Austin in 1968. One year later he switched to full time at UT as head of the group and taught graduate statistics. Entrepreneurial interests go back to his farm days including wanting the herd of purebred Angus. This spirit surfaced while still in Chicago when he became aware and interested in antiques for the first time. He decided that the way to learn the area was to start a business and that’s what he did with Red Rooster Antiques in an antique mall. That goes back to about 1966 and this mall may have been the first one west of the Mississippi. When he moved to Austin there were few early American antiques to buy and resell and it was too far to travel to the east coast for inventory. The Chairman of MRI Systems was Alfred King a member of the King ranch family. Alfred was an advanced art (photo of gallery opening) collector and got Jerry hooked on art. That resulted in his owning 3 art galleries in Austin, Texas over the next several years. His specialty was Native American art representing artists such as Allan Houser, Doug Hyde and Frank Howell.( www.allanhouser.com/ , , www.frankhowellgallery.com/ ) His first software entrepreneurial endeavor was with Execucom Systems Corporation () and its product called the Interactive Financial Planning System (IFPS). The idea was hatched with a graduate student named Mike McCants. He took a year’s leave of absence in 1978 to try and build the company and then never went back to UT. The company was acquired by GTE in 1984 when it was one of the largest and most successful software companies. In 1984 with his second wife Brenda Null he moved to Bastrop, Texas to pursue his interest in architectural restoration. Bastrop (www.cityofbastrop.org/) is a historical community about 30 miles east of Austin. From about 1984 to 1987 he purchased or moved to Bastrop about 30 buildings which were then restored to their original states. This includes the log cabin compound that is now the LCRA Conference Center. () During his time in Bastrop he was also the president of the Chamber of Commerce and elected to be a city council person receiving more votes than anyone had received prior to that time. The Texas real estate bust and the stock market bust occurred in 1987 as well as his divorce from Brenda. Jerry decided to move back to Austin and started another software company which became known as Collaborative Technologies Corporation with its product called VisionQuest. VisionQuest was software to support group decision making. CTC was acquired in about1990. During 1988 and 1989 he built his home in Vineyard Bay () on Lake Travis which a few years later the highest priced home sold in MLS in the Austin area. Jerry met Tillie Harrison in about 1988 and they were married. He had spent a lot of time in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was always inclined to live there. They moved to Santa Fe in 1990 and he bought a 6600 acre ranch close to Abiquiu () , the Ghost Ranch () , down the road from Georgia O’Keefes home (), and next to Shirley MacLaine’s ranch. He named the ranch Tierra de Sonadores (Land of the Dreamers). For the next 3 years strong bonds were built with Indian tribes in the area and plans were underway to use the land for various tribal restoration projects. That ended though in 1993. A divorce from Tillie in 1992, poor judgment in selecting financial partners, and a yearning for the fast high tech pace of Austin caused him to move back to Austin in 1993. While in Santa Fe he had started Milagro Systems to create software for novices to be able to build multi media books. Back in Austin, that ended when the Internet and its tools came on the scene. In 1998 he met and married Nancy Scott while participating in the Loveland, Colorado sculpture show () In about 1999 he started the company WebIQ () to again create group collaboration software. This venture backed company got caught in the .com crash and ended with the company being sold. The product continues successfully today in Washington D.C. In 2001 while visiting his mother in Norfolk, Nebraska he stopped by to visit the Peter Kiewit Institute () in Omaha, Nebraska. It is an IT and Engineering College and part of the University of Nebraska – Omaha. The Dean offered him a position as a Distinguished Research Fellow and he accepted. A few days before 9/11 he arrived in Omaha. Since then he has started the International (Academy for Advanced Decision Support (www.iaads.unomaha.edu/), One Innovation (somewhere in here put the 2005 photo) Place where the best and brightest computer science students design and create advanced software applications, new BSc degree called IT Innovation, was invited to become a Gallup Senior Scientist (www.gallup.com/corporate/19318/Gallup-Senior-Scientists.aspx), and was named the 2007 Nebraska Technology Professor of the year. Additionally he started GRW Studios, Inc.(www.grwstudios.com) which has created an advanced modeling and visualization software package called the Planners Lab (www.plannreslab.com) which is now available world wide for free to University faculty and students, Business Incubators and their tenants, and non profit organizations. (somewhere in here put the 2007 photo) He still has the attraction to historical preservation and over the past 2 years has restored a home in Brownville, Nebraska (). Brownville is a little village on the Missouri river about 70 miles south of Omaha. It was the first incorporated town in the state and the house is believed to be the oldest in Nebraska that being used. Each fall in collaboration with the Gallup Organization and the AIM Institute he brings leading experts from around the country to Omaha to give seminars and workshops (). These deal with the topics of Interaction Design, Data Visualization, Web Design, and Software Interface Design. The theme for the fall of 2008 is “Cool New Stuff”. That might give some clues as to what is to come in Jerry’s life.
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