Earl Judson Isaac (7 August 1921 – 12 December 1983) founded
Fair, Isaac and Company along with friend
William R. "Bill" Fair in 1956. They began the operation in a small studio apartment on Lincoln Avenue in
San Rafael, California
San Rafael ( ; Spanish for " St. Raphael", ) is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's populatio ...
.
Early life and education
Earl Isaac was born in
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
. The youngest of five children, Earl had two older brothers and two older sisters. He graduated from high school at age 15, attended
Muskingum University
Muskingum University is a private liberal arts college in New Concord, Ohio. Chartered in 1837 as Muskingum College, the institution is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Collectively, the university's alumni are referred to as th ...
, then accepted an appointment in the
United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...
at Annapolis, Maryland, for the class of 1944. Because of the outbreak World War II, he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1943, one year early, and served as a U.S. Naval officer on the
USS ''Missouri''. After World War II, Earl earned a Master of Science degree in Mathematics at
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...
.
Career
After being discharged from the Navy, he worked at
SRI International
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
during SRI's beginning years, then known as Stanford Research Institute, along with Bill Fair, his future business partner.
With an initial investment of $400 each, Isaac and Fair founded
Fair, Isaac and Company in 1956, a firm that would provide a creditworthiness scoring system to lenders.
[About Us FICO]
nbsp;— FICO official Web site
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
* View Points Special Issue — The Fair Isaac Company, January 1986, written by William R. Fair. (article is not online)
External links
FICO - About Us - History
American computer programmers
1921 births
1983 deaths
20th-century American mathematicians
20th-century American businesspeople
United States Navy officers
United States Naval Academy alumni
SRI International people
Muskingum University alumni
People from Buffalo, New York
Businesspeople from Buffalo, New York
United States Navy personnel of World War II
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