High-Tech Entrepreneur to Receive Honorary Degree
(Posted May 6, 2002)
HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- John Dale, retired executive vice president of the telecommunications software consulting firm Dale, Gesek, McWilliams and Sheridan, and a native of Curwensville, Clearfield County, will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree from Juniata College May 12 at 2 p.m. during Juniata's 124th commencement ceremony.
Dale, a 1954 graduate of Juniata College, is one of the founders of DGM&S, a computer software, services and consulting business specializing in telecommunications and networking technology and products relating to those areas.
Dale has been a member of Juniata's Board of Trustees since 1997 and has made significant donations to Juniata, which allowed the college to establish its Information Technology program and several endowed chair faculty positions. He also served on the college's Alumni Council from 1995 to 1997 and serves on the college's Information Technology advisory board.
He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Juniata College and went on to attend the University of Wisconsin. He returned to Juniata as an instructor of mathematics in 1955, teaching junior- and senior-level courses. In 1958, he left Juniata to enter graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a master's degree in mathematics in 1960. He also served as a teaching assistant in mathematics at Penn from 1956 to 1960.
Dale started his career in business in 1960, after accepting a computer programmer position at RCA. He was promoted to manager of the telecommunications group several years later. He left RCA in 1967 to become telecommunications division manager for National Computer Analysts in Princeton, N.J. In 1968, he was promoted to vice president of the company.
In 1970, Dale became a consultant in telecommunications, forming Technology Management Group in Princeton, N.J., with Rex McWilliams. In 1974, the consultancy was expanded and renamed Dale, Gesek, McWilliams and Sheridan (DGM&S). Dale was a partner in the firm and held the title vice president of systems development. In 1982, he earned a master's degree in computer science from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
In 1995, the DGM&S firm merged with Comverse Technologies Inc. and Dale retired in 1995 as executive vice president of DGM&S.
Dale lives in Medford, N.J. with his wife, Irene, who graduated from Juniata in 1958. The couple has four daughters, Denise Koetas, a social worker; Andrea Harris, a software manager at Comverse; Deborah Seidel, a vice president at the investment firm T. Rowe Price; and Valerie White, a librarian at Penn State York. The couple has seven grandchildren.
Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.