Richard Lary has been in the computer industry for 37 years. He started out as a software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation, building operating systems and compilers for the PDP-8 and PDP-11 computers. In 1975, he served as a member of the core team that defined the VAX computer architecture, and later the implementation team for the first VAX computer. After joining Digital's Storage Business Unit in 1978, Richie was a key architect of the Digital Storage Architecture and a key implementer of several of the hardware and firmware components of the associated product family. He became Digital's Storage Architect in 1990, Digital's Storage Technical Director in 1994, and Compaq Computer Corporation's Storage Technical Director in 1998; as Technical Director he was responsible for technical oversight of the entire corporate storage architecture and product line. Richie holds 30 patents for his work in processor and storage system architecture and design, and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Server I/O Conference in January, 2000 in recognition of his contributions. He left Compaq in June, 2000 and is now an independent consultant in the computer storage industry, and an adviser to several emerging storage companies.