Among the current CUNY/CIS staff, Aron Eisenpress, Manager of MVS Systems, has the clearest claim to pioneer status. He was among the first arrivals at West 57th when CIS - then called the University Computer Center - was launched in 1973.

His work in computing began in the late 1960s when he was a Columbia undergraduate, "hanging out," as he describes it, with friends around the computer center. (Some things don't change. Most academic computer centers still have students hanging around, asking questions about new gadgets and helping out whenever they are allowed to.)

Columbia's computer at the time, a 360/91, was a huge machine with all of 2M memory. Its operating system was MVT with ASP, the precursors of MVS and JES3 at CUNY/CIS. Most jobs were submitted on cards but there were a few CRT 2260 terminals which could logon to CLEO and CRBE, precursors of our WYLBUR.

Kenneth King was Director of the Columbia Computer Center and Ira Fuchs Manager of Systems Programming. These two got to know Eisenpress and had the foresight to encourage his curiosity. He was hired part-time to train the operators and then full-time as a systems programmer in 1971.

In 1973, King was hired by the City University of New York as Dean of Computing, with the specific mandate to create the new central CUNY computer center at 57th Street. He brought with him many of his Columbia staff - Eisenpress, Ben Yalow, Ira Fuchs, Joe Giannotti, Steve Dreyer and Rita Terdiman - who made up the initial core of the CUNY/UCC systems group.

Eisenpress's responsibilities were to install ASP and MVT and support them and later their replacements, MVS and JES3. "System support" is a broad label, but for him it meant several things. One was applying service from IBM (which in those days came on a deck of cards with a cover letter of instructions). Another was tuning the system to maximum efficiency (the Computer Center mission originally focused on enabling hundreds of small batch jobs submitted by students learning to program to be scheduled rapidly; later the priority was on smooth performance of massive programs like CUNY+, the online library system). A third was modifying the system whenever it did not meet our user community needs. IBM did not have a university in mind when it designed the system. It did not anticipate student users -especially very curious ones. Aron wrote modifications to protect the system from over-eager users.

For many years, Eisenpress has been active in SHARE, an association whose member organizations are users of IBM information technology. SHARE provides education, promotes mutual support, influences information technology strategies, products and services, and opens up a channel of communication between IBM and other vendors and their customers.

Most institutional users recognized the need for security, to protect resource use, data integrity and privacy. Many, including CUNY/UCC, developed their own home-grown systems which involved local "mods" to JES3 and MVS, mods which had to be re-fitted each time IBM updated the system, a task that kept Eisenpress very busy. Through SHARE, the need for a security system was made known; IBM responded with RACF.

Eisenpress has been a regular attendee at the annual SHARE conferences. A Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting on JES3 that he organized attracted over 50 people - perhaps as many of them IBM staff as customers - and the BOF then turned into a standing committee with Eisenpress as chair. His contribution to the JES Project brought him to the attention of the SHARE leaders and he was nominated to the Software Service Task Force (SSTF), which later named him editor of their Report.

In 1983 he made a presentation of the findings of the SSTF to the members of SHARE-Europe in Oxford, England. He then became Publications Manager with primary responsibility for the SHARE Proceedings, a job which included drawing up a set of criteria to guide authors in preparation of acceptable submissions and reviewing many White Papers and Task Force reports. He draws on his own experience in working on papers and reports to help others produce documents that will be readable and effective.

Although no longer Publications Manager - he is now SHARE Manager of Requirements -papers and reports in draft form still come his way, and the grapevine tells new writers that they will get constructive feedback from him.

In addition to his fascination with the workings of the computer, Eisenpress has several other skills and interests which often overlap. He is an avid and widely-travelled photographer, shooting subjects which include the Yosemite National Park, to which he has made repeated visits over the years, and the landscape of Australia, where he travelled with his wife Dorothy in 1990.

He is also a chronicler of New York City, with particular interest in documenting such little-investigated features as the unused tracks of its vast subway system. His photographs have graced the pages of many CUNY/UCC and CIS publications, and are featured in the new CUNY home page on the World Wide Web (see the cover article in this issue).

Add to these accomplishments and interests a long-standing love of music (for years CUNY staff consulted Eisenpress's opinions of Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic performances before deciding on their ticket purchases), and the picture of CUNY/CIS's Renaissance man comes into focus.