Although the Remington Rand division of the Sperry Rand Company moved from Holyoke in late August, 1960, the UNIVAC division continued to operate at 686 Main Street in Holyoke. At the time, there were 35 workers at the plant.
UNIVAC, a pioneering company in the computer field, is an acronym for Universal Automatic Computer. Although no date was found for the UNIVAC division starting operations at the Remington Rand plant, the time period would be 1955 to 1960. When Remington relocated from Holyoke in 1960, the news indicated that 35 workers manufacturing automatic tabulator cards for UNIVAC computers would remain.
In 1967, the home office of UNIVAC’s Card and Tape division was moved from a Philadelphia suburb to Holyoke. The tape processing division located in Utica, New York, was also moved to Holyoke. The proximity to air freight transportation from Bradley Airport, Holyoke’s workforce, and key customers throughout New England was a key factor in the home office relocation. Space was also available, facilitating the move to centralize operations.
2,000 square feet would be added for shipping and receiving, and the third floor of the factory building would be remodeled for office use. Ciolek Construction Company of South Hadley was the general contractor for the projects.
In October 1967, it was announced that UNIVAC’s Holyoke division would soon be sold to Data Documents Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska.
In 1971, UNIVAC transferred its remaining Holyoke division, the System Programming Library Service, to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, to be closer to its headquarters in Bluebell, PA. 13 jobs were impacted by the move.
The final chapter of this three-part series focuses on the Holyoke history of Data Documents Inc.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Price & Lee, Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
No comments:
Post a Comment