Valparaiso Magazine - Winter 2021

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A LOOK BACK >> A LOOK Valparaiso Enters the Information By Kevin Pazour W hen Urschel Laboratories purchased its first computer, the industrial firm had been producing food-processing machinery for over fifty years. Around 1963, Urschel Labs installed a computer onsite to control aspects of its manufacturing operation, to write payroll, and to handle its accounts payable and receivable. Employee Roy Kruse realized the potential of this machine. He approached Joe Urschel with the idea of starting a data processing company as a wholly owned subsidiary of Urschel Labs. After all, the industrial giant had extra cash on hand that it needed to allocate. Indiana Information Controls opened its doors in 1967 with Roy Kruse as Executive Vice President. Kruse knew that banks would be IIC’s primary, and most lucrative, customer base — though the firm would also provide data processing services for a multitude of other commercial and governmental enterprises. A June 1967 IIC advertisement in the Vidette-Messenger warned companies that “You can rent or buy a computer for peanuts. It’s just the programming time, specialists, operating expenses, special room, modifications, unused time and over head that cost you your shirt.” IIC offered its customers the ability to pay only for the services they required. With such expensive machinery and complex technology, IIC’s offer appealed to many companies. Photo of IIC Machinery from The Vidette Messenger, January 29, 1977 IIC could process checks faster and at a lower cost than companies who traditionally oversaw their own billing and payroll programs. In late 1968, IIC took over the billing and payroll for the Valparaiso Water Department. The Water Department could produce one bill for twenty cents — IIC could do it for thirteen cents. It took workers at the Water Department about ten days a month to process billings, while IIC could complete the work in a matter of hours. Further, IIC’s computer system could provide the Water Department with an unprecedented wealth of data on municipal water usage, expanding the searchable IIC logo as printed in The Videtter-Messenger, June 12, 1967 categories from two to twenty-five. According to Water Department Chief Engineer Philip Coote, the IIC system “shows everything that’s now on the ledger card, but better.” A few years later, IIC took over the payroll program for the Porter Memorial Hospital and the billing program for a few other local water departments. However, the firm’s real profitability came from its number one customer: banks. By 1969, only two years after opening its doors, IIC performed data processing for fourteen banks in Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan. IIC now employed thirty people and had added a second Honeywell 1200 computer system to its state of the art Valparaiso computer center at 2401 Calumet. By 1971, IIC expanded its computer center by 4,000 square feet, bringing it to a total of 12,000 square feet, in order to accommodate the swelling demand caused by its ever-increasing number of banking clients. By 1975, IIC was processing data for fortyseven banks in Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. The firm had begun to offer “on-line” services to its bank customers, and was in the early stages of introducing a system that would allow customers of client banks to withdraw money from their checking accounts twenty-four hours a day — a device that would eventually be known as the automated teller machine, or ATM. Though engineers at IIC did not invent the ATM, the company was the first to 34 VALPARAISO MAGAZINE | WINTER 2021
BACK Age IIC ATM introduce the device to Indiana. In 1976, the first ATM equipment in Porter County was installed at the East Lincolnway and Portage branches of the First National Bank. That year also witnessed another milestone accomplishment for IIC — they fielded their own softball team. IIC continued to grow rapidly. In 1977, the firm opened a new data processing center in Indianapolis — it now provided processing services for seventy-six banks in Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. By 1982, IIC was without a doubt the largest financial data processing center in Indiana. This allowed the company to provide the customers of its bank clients with a statewide network of ATMs. Gradually, all of IIC’s customer banks were connected to online service. However, by the early 1990s, the demands of Urschel’s flourishing international business made it impossible for the parent company to dedicate sufficient time to its subsidiary. In 1992, Computer Services Inc. (CSI) of Paducah, Kentucky purchased IIC. At this time the Valparaiso computer center had 155 full- and part-time employees, with 255 total. The annual revenues for each company in the year preceding their consolidation were nearly equal — CSI generated $19 million, while IIC pulled in $14 million. CSI’s acquisition of IIC made it one of the largest financial data processing firms in the country. ValpoChamber.org 35
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