Background: Incredulous as it may seem today, the gurus at the Westinghouse Learning Corporation (WLC) senior management level believed in the late 1960's that they could use massive technology to completely overhaul the educational system in the United States. A strategy or paradigm known as PLAN, an acronym for Programmed Learning According to Needs, was conceived by WLC - with the aid of nationally renowned and educationally experienced consultants and psychologists (such as B. F. Skinner) - whereby OMR testing technology, based upon a refined version of our MRC W-400D card reader (refer to Item No. 43 above) could be utilized to test each student frequently, and adjust his/her curriculum 'dynamically' as often as the test results dictated. The WLC-modeled PLAN classroom envisioned the students in an open unstructured area, and each student 'doing his/her own thing', based upon where the OMR test results guided them. The classroom teacher was more of an overseer or coach, rather than a traditional teacher, and simply charged with interpreting the periodic OMR test results for each student and pointing the student to the appropriate self-study resources (according to Needs!). WLC actually convinced several schools to experiment with PLAN, but the Utopian expectations were hardly met (surprise!), and before too long, WLC abandoned this ambitious and possibly ill-conceived effort. And that is where I enter the equation: my task was to set up a manufacturing facility in Iowa City to build 150 to 200 units of an MRC Card reader, based upon the W-400D design, and interface the readers to a Burroughs TC-500 terminal controller, the Burroughs product being manufactured in Plymouth, MI. (all of 10 megabytes storage on a dinner-plate size magnetic drum, a cabinet full of transistorized logic, and a green-phosphor 10" CRT. Ugh!). The required quantity of card readers was determined by WLC senior management, based upon the number they expected to sell quickly, once the first few PLAN prototype schools 'spread the word'. Thus, I traveled to Melbourne, FL to cut a deal with Melbourne Data Systems to provide the estimated quantity of reader mechanisms, and also I leased space in Iowa City suitable for the manufacturing ramp up. I hired a supervisor to run the manufacturing operation, and he in turn, began recruitment for assembly staff. Numerous purchase orders were placed by my stock-controller, Jack Cahalan, for the thousands of components needed for the manufacturing cycle. In the interim, Melbourne Data Systems was acquired by Mohawk Data Systems in Herkimer, NY, so additional trips were required to their facility to provide continuity on our orders for the reader mechanisms. As noted by the WLC MEMO at the end of my report, Vice President R. W. Marker to John McMillin, dated August 19, 1969, he authorized me to officially initiate the manufacturing phase for 150 PLAN readers, for first use in September 1970, and he stressed that it was my sole responsibility to achieve this goal. Barely more than a year to pull of this major effort, starting from scratch! Several months later, as I was scrambling with all the factors involved in this directive from Dr. Marker, I get a telephone call from Pete Wahl, another WLC senior Vice President, and a former MRC Iowa City General Manager, now located in an eastern WLC office. "Mac, are you sitting down?", Pete inquires. "Yes", says I. "Well, then", says Pete, "I must inform you that the PLAN reader manufacturing project has been cancelled and you must now backtrack out of all the financial, legal, staffing, and contractual commitments you have made hurriedly during the past few months". That evening at dinner was one of the few times in my career at MRC/WLC that I broke down and sobbed uncontrollably in front of my family. However, in retrospect, Pete's call was undoubtedly a blessing in thin disguise, as I later questioned if we could have ever pulled off this overly ambitious and unrealistic time schedule promoted by Dr. Marker, who was later relieved of his role in the failed WLC PLAN project. Websites for checking out the renowned B. F. Skinner: http://www.nndb.com/people/297/000022231/ and http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/skinner.html