40 years of DAI

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons
Promoting Agricultural Exports in Sri Lanka
The $7.7 million Mahaweli Agriculture and Rural Development
(MARD) Project in Sri Lanka, on which DAI served as
a subcontractor to Oregon State University, was a landmark
project of the 1980s. MARD was designed by Don Mickelwait
to initiate agricultural production of the staple crop rice on
one hand, and to promote diversification to more exportfriendly
crops on the other. The project had a tough start.
USAID rejected DAI’s first pick for Chief of Party, so Mickelwait
persuaded Max Goldensohn to take the job. Goldensohn
accepted and led a team of six “expats” and nine Sri
Lankans in a project that would ultimately last eight years.
Tea plantation near Kandy, Sri Lanka
38
A Bigger Ship
While it was solving new development problems abroad, DAI
was also learning how to grow and prosper at home. In 1987,
the company achieved its highest net income to date, on
revenues of $12.7 million, and had 40 employees working on
projects overseas in a dozen countries.
As DAI doubled in size, computerization became a boon to
management and staff. The 1980s were the “going digital”
decade for most corporations, and the usual pattern was for
computerization to begin in the back office and then eventually
be applied to operations. But because Mickelwait was an
early convert to personal computing, DAI computerized backward.
It bought its first DEC word processor in 1981, a move
fiercely resisted at first by its veteran production typist, who
was wedded to his IBM Selectric. Other innovations soon
followed. Mickelwait put an Ohio Scientific PC in an empty
office and invited staff to try it out. By 1983, he had hired
someone to install one of the first office-wide email systems
on Televideo equipment, a hot item at that time, and by 1985,
most DAI staff traveling overseas carried heavy 8-bit Kaypro
PCs, which were the size and weight of a sewing machine.
Carol Kulski, who arrived at DAI with the DEC word processor,
accompanied one of Mickelwait’s consulting teams to
Pakistan and produced the team’s report in the field, something
the USAID mission had neither asked for nor expected.
It was not until 1987, however, that the company installed the
Deltek automated accounting system.
As the company grew, the staff shared in the benefits. Individual
stock ownership had been available to the most senior
employees since the late 1970s, and the profit sharing retirement
plan now held 30 percent of DAI shares, most of which
had been contributed during 1981’s cash drought. It was not
until the mid-1980s, however, that the Board of Directors de-