Rutt initially earned $1.85 per hour as a trainee in underwriting. Three years later – at age 25 – he was named head of the automobile underwriting department, succeeding his mentor, a pastor who was transitioning to full-time ministry work.

Suddenly, Rutt was managing a department of about a dozen people, developing underwriting procedures for no-fault automobile insurance. “The job of an underwriter is to find people you don’t want to cover with insurance and to exclude them,” he now says wryly, by way of explaining why he decided not to make a career out of the position as his predecessor had done.

Goodville did, however, expose him to the workings and possibilities of computers – the company had an IBM mainframe that processed data that Rutt’s underwriters needed.

Next life stage: one of six owners and president of an office supply and furniture business. Through the 1980s, this new company, The Office Works, added a personal computers sales division and grew to have seven retail outlets in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Rutt found himself writing the software code that his company needed for inventory control, accounts receivable, and service-work orders. He worked on a mini-computer that was one of the first to challenge the dominance of IBM mainframe computers for small businesses.

Ironically, the only class Rutt had ever dropped at EMU was Fortran taught by Joe Mast, because the challenging class didn’t seem worth it when Rutt already had a full courseload. As a result, Rutt had to learn about computer technology the hard way – on the job.

Rutt and his partners sold their computer division to a national chain in 1990. Almost immediately, Rutt was recruited to be systems manager for a health maintenance organization affiliated with Blue Shield of Pennsylvania. There he supervised a small group of employees responsible for keeping three high-availability, multi-million dollar computer systems running. There, too, he earned the highest annual income of his lifetime.

That work continued until Beryl Brubaker, then vice-president of enrollment at EMU, contacted him to consider the role of information systems director at EMU, where Rutt’s two children were then undergrads. Feeling called, Rutt took a substantial pay cut to come to a place in December 1999 where stability was needed – he would be the third IS director in as many years.

The changes in EMU’s information systems since 1999 have been extensive. Computer technology now claims about 5% of EMU’s total budget. Key markers: the staff nearly doubled in size under Rutt’s leadership; about every seven years, the core networking infrastructure has been replaced; its student information system was converted in 2007-09 to a new operating platform.

In May 2014, Rutt handed over his departmental leadership to someone he had trained,ĚýBen Beachy ’02 and stepped into a pre-retirement role of doing project management and communications facilitation for EMU’s building renovations.

Rutt is married to Gloria Short Rutt ’72, a schoolteacher for much of their married life. Their children are Eric Rutt ’01Ěý˛š˛ÔťĺĚýMegan Rutt Rosenwink ’02.

The employees – Dwight Wyse ‘68, the school’s director of business affairs, and Mark Shank, director of computer services − cobbled together a company they called Computer Management and Development Services (CMDS). Their first client was EMU; their first employee was Harvey Mast ‘80.

Mast, who shared with another student the distinction of being EMU’s first computer majors, recalls one of his first computer classes: “We built a very simple computer out of a Heathkit package and inputted information with an eight-button keyboard, one 8-bit character at a time.”

CMDS soon moved to a farmhouse on Virginia Avenue, which was eventually torn down to make room for the expansion of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC). In 1983 CMDS moved to a house next to Miller Cabinet Shop at the southwest edge of town and in 1986 to an office building on Virginia Avenue north of VMRC.

The company grew to 160 employees, providing software and services to nearly 300 customers in 45 states. CMDS became one of the nation’s leading developers of administrative software for colleges and universities, serving the offices of admissions, registration, alumni, development, financial aid and accounting. Its best-known software was TEAMS.

In 1999 CMDS built an imposing corporate office building, designed by architects LeRoy Troyer and Randy Seitz, on Technology Drive off Mt. Clinton Pike near North Main Street (U.S. Route 11).

In 2000 CMDS made the momentous decision to be acquired by a new Boston company named Jenzabar. Jenzabar also acquired three of CMDS’s competitors – Campus America of Knoxville, CARS of Cincinnati and Quodata of Hartford.  CMDS and two of the other companies maintained their own buildings.

After the merger, there was a period of significant employee turnover. A number of the key players in CMDS, including Wyse, left or were laid off. The imposing CMDS building was now too big, and Jenzabar moved its Harrisonburg offices to the headquarters of a former technology firm nearby at 1401 Technology Dr.

Jenzabar supports more than 1,000 campuses in the United States and around the world. Some 20% of all U.S. colleges and universities use Jenzabar software. Among them is EMU.

“The core product EMU uses today is Jenzabar EX, the flagship student information system sold by Jenzabar,” said Jack Rutt ’72, EMU’s director of information systems from 1999 until last summer. “Several other systems which supplement the functionality of EX have been added over the years, including MyEMU and a retention management system.”

´ĄťĺťĺąđťĺĚýBen Beachy ’02, MBA ’09, Rutt’s successor at EMU:  “A longstanding rumor in our department is that EMU was customer number one of CMDS, but I’ve never seen the actual database record to verify that.”

Today, 35 years after the founding of CMDS, Shank and Mast are still with the company. Fifteen EMU alumni work for Jenzabar.  About half of them pre-date the merger. One of them,ĚýMark Showalter ’91, joined the day – May 1, 2000 − that the merger was announced.

The alumni at Jenzabar, in addition to Mast and Showalter, are:  Lois Ann Handrich ’67;ĚýDon Bomberger ’72;ĚýDale Hartzler ’85, MDiv. ’08;ĚýBrian Boettger ’86, S ’88, ’91;ĚýMike Engle ’87;ĚýMark Deavers ’89;ĚýMike Weaver ’90;ĚýRobert Ranck ’90;ĚýDale Hess ’92;ĚýDerek Christner ’97;ĚýEric Weaver ’02;ĚýMark Horst ’05; and Jessie Groeneweg ’07.

 A couple times a day, Alderfer or another work-study student would check the phone and write down the messages – who had called and what their problem was – and then either go fix the problem or relay the question to someone else.

Since then EMU has almost doubled its information systems personnel to 17 full-time employees who operate on three teams – “technology systems” headed by Alderfer ’00, “user services” headed by Jenni Piper ’92, and “student information systems,” which functions collaboratively.

Alderfer and Piper describe these teams as dealing with “everything from the network jack back,” “responsible for anything that plugs in,” and managing programs like myEMU and student records through EMU’s vendor-supplied software system, Jenzabar EX. EMU also has eight or so work-study students and a part-time evening helpdesk manager,ĚýKrysta Nyce ’14.

Remarkably, considering EMU’s  liberal arts focus, all but two of the 17 full-time employees are alumni. Like Alderfer, most came to IT through their work-study position. “You come on and basically it’s like an apprenticeship where you learn by getting out there and solving problems that you haven’t seen before,” he said. “For people who enjoy learning that way it’s a great place.”

EMU’s diverse set of needs makes it a great place to learn, say several who have risen through the system. IS director Ben Beachy ’02 explained that the staff and administrators operate closest to IT corporate work, while students use the system much like one would use a home system, and faculty rely on technology as an important pedagogical tool. Each of these groups has different ways of using the networks and different requirements for smooth functioning.

One of the most challenging aspects of the EMU system is linking all the components so that one part of the system communicates well with another. There isn’t really a user manual about how to do this; solving IS problems often takes creativity, collaboration, and trial and error. “It’s an ongoing process,” Alderfer said. “Things are always in flux and require us to revisit or reinvent solutions.”

A recent priority for IS has been improving Internet speed, Beachy said. In a concentrated effort over the summer of 2014, IS tripled the amount of wireless access points in the dorms in order to increase bandwidth. “Eight years ago we just wanted to make sure everyone could get on with their one or two devices,” Beachy said. With students bringing up to seven devices each, though, the service in the dorms was no longer adequate.

When Jenni Piper was a freshman in 1988 there were only hall phones in the dormitories and no Internet connection. In fact, EMU had no personal computer technology at all until the year before, when the business computer lab received 18 “IBM type” computers with 2-5.25 inch disk drives. The dorms didn’t begin to become wired until 1995.

Almost 20 years later, IS has been heavily involved with the recent renovation of Roselawn and ongoing renovation of the Suter Science Center by overseeing and facilitating the installation of the wires, technology and resources necessary to provide an efficient technology system to the EMU community. IS staffers troubleshoot problems that may arise, install new technology into classrooms, and fix devices that suddenly don’t work the way they are supposed to. Despite the inevitable frustrations that accompany relying on and upgrading technology, IS staffers find that folks at EMU are understanding and patient as the IS teams work to fix things. “By and large people are very kind, supportive and appreciative of what we do here,” said Beachy.

That may be one reason why EMU IS employees stay so long. Beachy, Alderfer and Piper have been with IS for 13, 14 and 19 years respectively (Piper worked in other capacities at EMU for five years before joining the IS team in 1995). Others like Dan Marple and Marty King ’85 have been at EMU for similarly long tenures. “Everyone has made a choice to work here,” said Piper.

Alderfer agreed. “The reality in technology is that people who have good IT skills can make a lot of money in some places” (and no one pretends that EMU employees make the big bucks). “But,” added Alderfer, “for people who are motivated by service, who want to see their work go toward something larger, and have good technical skills, those kind of people enjoy working here and are successful.”

Other alumni who work in IS at EMU include Sam Sauder ’93,ĚýMichael Stauffer ’76,ĚýAndrew Crorken ’11,ĚýHolden Byler ’06,ĚýAlison D’Silva ’01,ĚýSteve Gibbs ’04,ĚýDan Risser ’05,ĚýAustin Showalter ’13,ĚýJustin Hershey ’12Ěý˛š˛ÔťĺĚýHB Belay ’06.