Industrial Program

Two New Partners for NCSA

Sears

Sears, Roebuck, and Co. recently joined NCSA's Industrial Program. Based in Hoffman Estates, IL, Sears is a leading retailer of apparel, home, and automotive products and services. The company operates 1,100 Sears department and specialty stores across the country.
"Sears is a national leader in seeking new information technologies to help them manage the ever-increasing competetive retail world," said NCSA Director Larry Smarr. "We feel NCSA can help them apply the evolving high-performance computing and information technologies to improve their ability to meet the growing expectations fo distinct customer segments in increasingly fractured markets while holding the line on expense."

"We are excited about joining NCSA," said Joe Smialowski, Sears senior vice president and chief information officer. "NCSA has successfully guided its industrial partners in the use of leading-edge high-performance technologies. We plan to leverage NCSA's world class research talent and supercomputing facilities to solve key retailing challenges. We expect our partnership will yield important benefits to Sears in its drive to improve customer service and financial performance."

"Sears is a highly successful, high-profile retailing company, well suited to be our exclusive retail segment partner," said John Stevenson, NCSA's corporate officer and head of the Industrial Program.

Allstate

NCSA recently announced that Allstate Insurance Co. joined the center's Industrial Program. Allstate Insurance Co., based in Northbrook, IL, is the nation's second-largest personal lines insurance company, insuring one of every eight homes and automobiles in the United States.
"We are excited about adding a world-leading insurance company to NCSA's Industrial Program," said Larry Smarr, director of NCSA. "Allstate is looking forward to participating in the highly successful Industrial Program at NCSA," said Frank Pollard, senior vice president and chief information officer of Allstate. "We believe NCSA will give us a competitive edge by helping us apply emerging supercomputing, networking, software, and visualization tools to our analysis of customer and market databases."

"Allstates commitment to maximize its capability to analyze its information resources is impressive," said John Stevenson, NCSA's corporate officer and head of the Industrial Program. "Their management is highly competitive and dedicated to improving their market position".

NCSA's other industrial partners are AT&T; American Airlines; Caterpillar; Dow Chemical; Eastman Kodak Co.; Eli Lilly & Co.; FMC; J.P. Morgan; Motorola Inc.; Phillips Petroleum Co.; Schlumberger; Tribune Co.; and United Technologies.

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access / Spring 1996 / Email comments to NCSA Publications Group: pubs@ncsa.uiuc.edu