Paul Swigert

Early Life

Born: August 29, 1941 - Chicago, Illinois

Childhood: Rogers Park, IL; moved to Birmingham, MI (Winter 1958)

Spent summers on White Lake near Duck Lake State Park, MI (mid 1940s)

Schools:

Eugene Field Elementary School

Lane Tech High School

Birmingham High School (now Seaholm High)

Education

Hillsdale College (1959–1963)

Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Physics, 1963 (Where he met the love of his life, Shane Johnston)

Graduate work in Mathematics at Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) c 1964

Graduate work in Mathematics at Ohio State University c 1965

Family

First Date: October 1961 with Shane Johnston

Proposed: March 19, 1963

Married: Shane Johnston on August 23, 1963 in Battle Creek, MI

Married for: 61 years (22,316 days)

NASA Career (1963–1968)

NASA Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center), Cleveland, Ohio

Started: June 17, 1963

Research Focus: Computational mathematics, fluid dynamics, and interactive computing systems

Published NASA Technical Notes and Memoranda:

• NASA TN D-3004 (October 1965)
  A method for the numerical solution of differential equations of the boundary-layer type is presented.
• NASA TN D-3472 (August 1966)
  A method for constructing quadrature coefficients through the use of a FORMAC computer program is presented.
• NASA TM X-1598 (June 1968)
  Co-authored with R. Bruce Canright, Jr. A FORTRAN subprogram package for rendering three-dimensional surface plots — output written to tape and rendered on a remote plotter.
• NASA TN D-4917 (November 1968)
  COMPUTE allows the user to perform various numerical calculations while at the TSS terminal without having to write computer programs.

IBM Career

Started: September 21, 1968

• September 1968 — Joined IBM in the Chicago commercial branch office as a Systems Engineer supporting Bell Labs' IBM System 360 Model 67 Duplex running TSS/360 in Naperville, IL
• October 1972 — Moved to IBM Data Processing Division headquarters in White Plains, NY to manage the TSS development and support group
• May 1980 — Relocated with the Data Processing Division to Los Colinas, TX; continued managing TSS development and developed PC/IX (a version of Bell Labs Unix for the IBM PC) and VM/IX (a version for IBM's Virtual Machine)
• December 1985 — On loan to Trintex, later Prodigy — the IBM/Sears/CBS partnership developing an online service for news, shopping, mail, and messaging in White Plains, NY

Retired: March 13, 1995 from Prodigy and IBM

Other Career Highlights

MECA Software: October 10, 1995 – August 31, 1999

GE Capital: February 1, 2000 – April 26, 2002

Final Retirement: March 7, 2002

Useppa Island Historical Society (2010–2013) — Served as President of the Board of Directors.

Useppa Island Wireless Network, Inc. (2015–2021) — Co-founded and served as Chief Information Officer.

Useppa Island Yacht Club (2019) — Served as Commodore of the Useppa Island Yacht Club.

Our Travels

Our Homes

Life Events

• Father's Death: January 2, 1963 - Harry Arnold Swigert, age 54
• Mother's Death: April 2, 1995 - Martha Leona Nystrom Swigert, age 87
• Best Friend's Death: August 5, 1997 - Bill Young, age 54
• Hurricane Charley: August 13, 2004 - Struck Useppa Island, FL
• Health Event: August 9, 2019 - Survived complete heart block, received pacemaker
• Brother's Death: November 25, 2019 - Harry Martin Swigert, age 84
• Shane's Passing: September 27, 2024, age 83 - After 61 years of marriage

I Do Have a Few Questions…

• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• Is the cat dead or alive?
• Is mathematics invented or discovered?
• Is time real, or a construct of mind?
• Is increasing entropy really the arrow of time?
• Is God real?
• Is our Universe inside a black hole?
• Are there multiple universes?
• Will our Universe end by fading away — or collapse into another Big Bang?
• Is the Universe sentient?
• Would the Universe exist if there were no one here to observe it?
• Do we all live in a simulation?
• Will AI ever become truly sentient?
• Are we the only sentient beings in the Universe?
• Will we ever arrive at a Theory of Everything?
• Will my memories persist in some form — or wash away like a collapsing ocean wave?
• Is the answer really 42?

Reflections

I was born just months before Pearl Harbor, and grew up in a world that was changing faster than anyone could have imagined. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time — contributing in a small way to the space age at NASA, and later to the early days of interactive computing at IBM. Whether any of it mattered beyond the moment, I honestly can't say.

After IBM, I found myself drawn into ventures that felt like the future — Prodigy, one of the first online services, and later MECA Software and GE Capital — before finally stepping back in 2002. In retirement, I stayed engaged the best way I knew how — trying to preserve a little history on Useppa Island, help build its wireless network, and keep up with the sailing.

My greatest good fortune by far was Shane — 61 years together, two children, five grandchildren, and more memories than I can count. Everything else is a footnote.