Tech whiz blazed trail for internet

Glen Tindal didn’t invent the Internet, but he was an early pioneer in the technology that shaped the Web used today by more than 1 billion people.

Tindal ended up working on the Internet almost by accident. While working in finance for Blue Cross and Blue Shield, he was asked in 1988 to help create a network with some of the company’s computers. That experience led him to his next job with defense contractor Ford Aerospace.

Although he continued to build networks, he got an early introduction to servers, Internet technology and access to what would later become the Internet at a time when it was available only to military personnel, defense contractors and university researchers.

“I’m not the father of the Internet, but I guess you could say I was an early member of the wagon train as far as the Internet is concerned,” Tindal said.

Tindal’s role with the Internet grew when he joined MCI Communications Corp. in 1992 and oversaw network architecture for MCI’s internal data network. He acquired the company’s mci.com Internet address and installed its first Internet connections.

He joined several former MCI executives in 2000 to start Intelliden Inc. in Colorado Springs to develop software for organizations to control, manage and expand their networks.

Intelliden has received more than $70 million in venture capital and employs about 100.

Intelliden has won two Celebrate Technology Awards from the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. for technology advances and has won customers that include British Telecommunications Plc, Comcast Corp., Royal KPN NV, Telus Corp. and Visa Inc.

Tindal, 47, is Intelliden’s chief technology officer and holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science with a minor in mathematics from Regis University.

Question: Where did you get your start in network technology?

Answer: I was doing finance work for Blue Cross in Boston at a time when the first

personal computers were being used and connected with each other. I was familiar with how PCs worked, and they asked if I would attend a class on how to interconnect PCs. I had an affinity for it, enjoyed the work and had the opportunity to work for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard, and they were in the midst of networking the entire organization, and I supervised that project. I met my wife-to-be there, and she was from Colorado, so I applied for and got a job at Ford Aerospace in Colorado Springs and put in the network for their building on Highway 83.

Q: Is that where you first began using the Internet?

A: In 1990, we had a connection at Ford Aerospace to Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s ARPANET, which was only available to the military, defense contractors and universities working on defense research. ARPANET later became the Internet, before it went public. I had the opportunity to work on routers and the technology now used on the Internet, and then moved over to MCI two years later.

Q: How were you involved in the birth of the Internet at MCI?

A: Two significant events happened after I joined MCI — the National Science Foundation

decided to make the Internet public and awarded a contract to MCI to build a backbone to interconnect regional networks. I was one of the few people who had experience with TCP/IP (transmission control protocol and Internet protocol) used on the Internet to help make the transition to what is now the Internet.

Q: Did you think the Internet would grow the way it has?

A: It didn’t take much more than a year for us to realize that the world would be radically changed because of the Internet and all it meant to communication, education and a way of staying connected with people. The freedom of it was so amazingly clear.

Q: How has networking and Internet technology changed?

A: It used to be you could only network about 20 people on a router, and now you can support 5,000 or 10,000 users and the cost is much lower. All of this has happened in the last 10 to 15 years. It is amazing so much has happened in such a short period of time. If you look at the time the telephone was invented, the technology changed little over the next 50 years. We will see more advances in the next five years than we have seen in the previous 25 years. The bandwidth at my house now is 1,000 times faster than MCI’s first connection to the Internet at a fraction of the cost. Our children will never know a world that wasn’t always on, always connected and always accessible.

Q: Why did you leave MCI?

A: I left MCI when the WorldCom merger occurred, and there were a whole lot of changes taking place that I didn’t want to have to live through. The culture was going to change, and that wasn’t something I wanted to experience. The climate was good (for startup companies) and the opportunity to create a company and use the lessons learned from MCI for our customers was too good to pass up. I realized the informationtechnology staff would never be big enough, and you would never be able to afford to continue throwing more bodies at managing your network.

Q: What challenges did you face with a startup at that time?

A: We started the company just as the stock market was starting to tank, the Sept. 11 (2001) attacks happened and the Iraq war started. That made it tough; it was a very difficult time because you didn’t know when the economy would turn around and technology spending would recover. We had to completely rethink the business model. The bar for purchasing software got a whole lot higher. There were times when I wondered whether we would make it. We went through three years of hard times before we landed our first really big customer, British Telecom.

Q: Do you plan to retire soon?

A: This is quickly becoming a young man’s game — there are so many bright, smart and talented young people. I will continue doing this until I stop learning and it isn’t fun anymore. I am motivated to learn — you pick up an amazing amount of information every day.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0234 or wayneh@gazette.com. Questions and answers are edited for space and clarity.

DETAILS

Tindal installed MCI’s first Internet connections in the early ‘90s. He is chief technology officer at Intelliden Inc., which employs about 100. He has a computer science degree.