Alan C. Ashton

Alan C. Ashton, born on 7 May 1942 in Salt Lake City, Utah, is an American computer scientist, the co-founder of WordPerfect Corporation and a former professor at Brigham Young University. He began his work in computer science at the University of Utah, studying computing and music in the early 1970s. In 1977 he began work on word processing by creating a specification for an improved console-based word processor whose innovations included continuous documents, function key shortcuts, modeless editing and primitive WYSIWYG formatting. With his student Bruce Bastian he incorporated Satellite Software International in September 1979, which later became WordPerfect Corporation, and in 1987 he left BYU to serve full-time as its president and chief executive officer. After Novell bought WordPerfect in 1994 he sat on the Novell board until 1996, and he later founded the venture firm ASH Capital and Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah.