Edward Nash Yourdon

Pioneer of structured analysis and object-oriented design methodologies, Yourdon was known as one of the lead developers of the structured analysis techniques of the 1970s, as co-developer of the Yourdon/Whitehead method for object-oriented analysis/design in the late 1980s, and the Coad/Yourdon methodology for object-oriented analysis/design in the 1990s. He obtained his B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1965, and had done graduate work in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and the Polytechnic Institute of New York.

In 1964 he started working at Digital Equipment Corporation developing FORTRAN programs for the PDP-5 minicomputer and later assembler for the PDP-8. Later in the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s, after working at a small consulting firm and as an independent consultant, he founded his own consulting firm in 1974, YOURDON Inc., to provide educational, publishing, and consulting services. After Yourdon sold this firm in 1986, he served on the Board of multiple IT consultancy corporations and was advisor on several research projects in the software industry throughout the 1990s.

In June 1997, he was inducted into the Computer Hall of Fame, along with such notables as Charles Babbage, Seymour Cray, James Martin, Grace Hopper, Gerald Weinberg, and Bill Gates. In December 1999, Crosstalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering named him one of the ten most influential people in the software field. In the late 1990s, Yourdon became the center of controversy over his beliefs that Y2K-related computer problems would result in severe software failures that would culminate in widespread social collapse. These failures did not materialize and he was later criticized for exaggerating the severity of the problem.

In the new millennium he became Faculty Fellow at the Information Systems Research Center of the University of North Texas, as well as Fellow of the Business Technology Trends Council for the Cutter Consortium, where he also served as editor of the Cutter IT Journal.