History (1996): David Weiss Chairman, President and CEO, StorageTek

Ryal R. Poppa, COB, president and CEO of Storage Technology, has retired sooner than originally expected, with the decision of the board of directors to confer all of his responsibilities upon David E. Weiss at the end of May.

Poppa, 62, CEO of StorageTek since 1985, was supposed to retire from active management in January 1997. Until then, however, he will continue in an advisory capacity.

“Both my wife and I are looking forward to a lighter schedule and more family time,” he said.

None of this prevented him, on May 24, from accepting a position on the board of CarrierAccess Corp. (Boulder,CO), a manufacturer of network access solutions.

Weiss, 52, is only the third person to hold the chairmanship of StorageTek on a permanent basis since it was founded in 1969. Besides Poppa, there was Jesse Aweida, one of the firm’s founders.

The new COB joined StorageTek as staff president in 1991 and has been executive VP and COO for the past 14 months. Previously, Weiss spent 23 years at IBM. He was chosen from among 100 potential candidates, who were narrowed down to a list of 5 finalists that were interviewed.

The board also selected David E. Lacey, 49, as EVP and CFO. He has been interim CFO since February 1995.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 101, published on June 1996.