John P. Sall (born 1948) is an American
billionaire businessman and computer software developer, who co-founded
SAS Institute
SAS Institute (or SAS, pronounced "sass") is an American multinational developer of analytics software based in Cary, North Carolina. SAS develops and markets a suite of analytics software ( also called SAS), which helps access, manage, ana ...
and created the
JMP statistical software.
Sall grew up in
Rockford, Illinois and earned degrees in history, economics and statistics. In 1976 he joined others from
North Carolina State University in co-founding SAS Institute, an analytics software company. In the 1980s, Sall and other developers created the JMP statistical software.
Early life
John Sall was born in
Rockford, Illinois, in 1948.
He received a bachelor's degree in history from
Beloit College
Beloit College is a private liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin. Founded in 1846, when Wisconsin was still a territory, it is the state's oldest continuously operated college. It is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and h ...
in
Beloit, Wisconsin
Beloit is a city in Rock County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 36,657 people.
History
Twelve men in Colebrook, New Hampshire, created the "New England Emigrating Company" in October 1836 and sen ...
. Sall felt he graduated into a weak job market, so he went to graduate school at
Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system ...
, where he earned a master's degree in economics. It was at graduate school that Sall became interested in statistics and computer science.
He went on to study graduate–level statistics at
North Carolina State University, where he received an honorary doctorate in 2003.
Career
James Goodnight
James Howard Goodnight (born January 6, 1943) is an American billionaire businessman and software developer. He has been the CEO of SAS Institute since 1976, which he co-founded that year with other faculty members of North Carolina State Univer ...
was John Sall's mentor at North Carolina State University.
In 1976, the two joined others from the University,
Anthony James Barr and Jane Helwig, in founding SAS Institute, an analytics software company founded to analyze agricultural data.
Sall designed, developed, and documented many of the earliest procedures of the
SAS language The SAS language is a computer programming language used for statistical analysis, created by Anthony James Barr at North Carolina State University.Barr & Goodnight, et al. 1976:"The SAS Staff". Attribution of contributions to SAS 72 and SAS 76. It ...
.
Sall started developing JMP in the 1980s, when the graphical user interface was introduced on the Macintosh.
Sall and a small team of developers spent a year and a half working on JMP before version one was released in October 1989.
Sall continued to do coding and product development for JMP software for more than 20 years, supporting
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0.
Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...
, writing the product in different implementation languages, re-writing the product's "nervous system" and improving the JMP scripting language.
Today Sall still acts as JMP's chief architect.
He also co-authored the book ''JMP Start Statistics'' with Ann Lehman and Lee Creighton.
Personal
Sall lives in
Cary, North Carolina
Cary is a town in Wake and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina and is part of the Raleigh–Cary, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2020 Census, its population was 174,721, making it the seventh largest mun ...
. He is married and has four children.
Sall and his wife are involved in conservation, international health and development, and environmental issues through the Sall Family Foundation.
Sall was on the board of
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US.
Founded in 1951, The Nat ...
from 2002 to 2011,
and is a member of the board for the Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...
.
Sall and his wife also work with the
World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wor ...
(WWF), CARE and other non-profits.
They contributed to the founding of
Cary Academy, an independent college preparatory school for students grades six through 12. Sall was elected Fellow of the
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
in 1998 and is a member of the
North Carolina State University board of trustees.
In 1994, he served as chairman of the Interface Foundation of North America.
Sall owns about one-third of SAS Institute, while Goodnight owns the remainder.
According to Forbes, Sall's net worth was approximately $4.2 billion as of 2016, making him the 392nd richest person in the United States at the time.
As of 2009, most of Sall's net worth was illiquid, and based on the estimated worth of his partial ownership in SAS Institute. In 2018,
Sall was still working, doing programming, and leading a team of developers.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sall, John
Living people
1948 births
American billionaires
Beloit College alumni
Businesspeople in software
Businesspeople from North Carolina
Giving Pledgers
21st-century philanthropists
North Carolina State University alumni
Northern Illinois University alumni
People from Cary, North Carolina
People from Rockford, Illinois
Fellows of the American Statistical Association
Mathematicians from Illinois