Alan Ashton

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Alan C. Ashton (* 1942 in Salt Lake City , Utah ) is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur as well as co-developer of WordPerfect and one of the two founders of the associated software company of the same name. He was a professor at Brigham Young University .

Ashton studied computer science and music at the University of Utah . In the 1970s he was a professor at Brigham Young University, where he developed the word processing program WordPerfect with his student Bruce Bastian and founded a company for it (Satellite Software International, later WordPerfect Corporation) in 1979. In 1987 he gave up his professorship entirely and became President and CEO of the company. The company was led by Ashton, Bastian (who each held roughly half the shares) and Pete Peterson. After the acquisition of WordPerfect by Novell in 1994, he served on the Novell Board of Directors until 1996 .

In 1999 he founded the venture capital company ASH Capital. With his wife, he founded Thanksgiving Point in Lehi , a community center with school activities, a museum, and a golf course. He has eleven children with his wife, Karen Ashton.

He is a Mormon and was a Church missionary in Germany when he was young. From 2004 to 2006 he was Mission President of the Church in Western Ontario . He is the grandson of former President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , David O. McKay .

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