Bruce Bastian, founding father of WordPerfect Company, whose phrase processor was the popular writing software within the early days of private computing — and who later, after popping out as homosexual, renounced his Mormon religion and funded LGBTQ causes — died June 16 at his house in Palm Springs, California. He was 76.
Michael Marriott, government director of the BW Bastian Basis, mentioned the trigger was issues from pulmonary fibrosis.
Mr. Bastian was ending his graduate research at Brigham Younger College within the late Nineteen Seventies when he based the corporate that grew to become WordPerfect with Alan C. Ashton, his laptop science professor and the grandson of David O. McKay, the influential former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Within the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties, Bastian and Ashton had been on the forefront of constructing computer systems extra productive for on a regular basis duties. Years later, they grew to become adversaries within the authorized battle over homosexual marriage.
Extremely customizable and with a toll-free buyer help line, WordPerfect emerged from a crowded market of latest phrase processors as the popular alternative of latest private laptop customers (its followers included Philip Roth, who used it till he retired in 2012, lengthy after this system had been outdated in recognition by Microsoft Phrase).
“WordPerfect had a fame for being very straightforward to make use of,” Matthew Kirschenbaum, a professor of English on the College of Maryland and writer of “Observe Modifications: A Literary Historical past of Phrase Processing” (2016), mentioned in an interview. “It was clear and trendy. Many of the display was dedicated to the doc you had been writing, slightly than quite a lot of menus and the remainder of the software program’s bells and whistles.”
Bastian wrote a lot of the software program’s code, whereas Ashton dealt with the enterprise aspect. By 1991, the corporate managed 50 p.c of the word-processing market and generated greater than $500 million in gross sales. It employed greater than 4,000 folks, most of them on the firm’s headquarters in Orem, Utah, a whole bunch of miles from Silicon Valley.
“In a world the place Silicon Valley firms thrive, WordPerfect Corp. is a little bit of an oddity,” Private Computing journal wrote in a canopy story in regards to the firm in 1988. “At 4,000 toes above sea stage, Utah’s Nice Basin isn’t precisely a high-tech hotbed. The air in Orem is dry in December, the snow falling on the Wasatch Entrance east of Salt Lake Metropolis is the powdery fluff that skilled skiers crave.”
The placement of the corporate was not the one oddity.
“There may be one other factor that units this high-tech firm other than most others,” the journal famous. “Like two-thirds of Utah’s inhabitants, most of WordPerfect’s staff are Mormons.”
That included each founders, considered one of whom was harboring a secret that tormented him.
In 1976, Bastian married his greatest buddy, Melanie Laycock. They’d 4 kids, however, as he later instructed interviewers, Bastian at all times knew he was homosexual.
Within the late Nineteen Eighties, throughout a enterprise journey to Amsterdam, she kissed one other man.
“Once I got here again to Utah, I used to be a large number,” Bastian mentioned in an interview with Outwords, a company that information oral histories in regards to the LGBTQ motion. “It was a transformative expertise and really troublesome. I walked within the door and noticed my little children and thought, ‘Uh, God. What am I going to do?’”
He instructed his spouse a couple of days later.
“We tried to make it work,” he instructed Outwords. “I attempted to be homosexual and Mormon on the identical time. That’s unattainable.”
A number of years later, Bastian publicly got here out as homosexual and eliminated his title from Mormon Church information. He acquired nameless emails from folks expressing disgust at his sexuality. Nonetheless, he felt liberated.
“It was an enormous aid to not should lie anymore,” she instructed the Mormon Tales podcast.
However hassle was brewing within the WordPerfect enterprise.
The corporate’s software program dominated the marketplace for computer systems working the MS-DOS working system, nevertheless it was gradual to launch a model for the rising Microsoft Home windows platform. Microsoft additionally included Phrase in its productiveness software program suite, Microsoft Workplace, which rapidly took market share away from WordPerfect.
In 1994, Bastian and Ashton bought their privately held firm to Novell for $1.4 billion. Novell subsequently bought the software program to Corel, which is now often known as Alludo. WordPerfect nonetheless has a loyal following within the authorized world.
Bastian left the corporate after the announcement of the sale to Novell. By means of his basis, he grew to become a significant philanthropist, funding cultural and humanities packages all through Utah. He additionally supported LGBTQ causes and joined the board of administrators of the Human Rights Marketing campaign, an LGBTQ rights advocacy group.
In 2008, the Mormon Church urged its members to financially help the passage of Proposition 8, a poll measure in California banning same-sex marriage. Ashton contributed $1 million.
“I wished to verify the longer term is sweet for my kids and grandchildren,” she instructed The Salt Lake Tribune. “That’s why I made my donation.”
Mr. Bastian contributed $1 million to opposition efforts.
The episode, he mentioned, left him feeling betrayed by Ashton. It was, he instructed The Tribune, “actually painful for me.”
Bruce Wayne Bastian was born on March 23, 1948, in Twin Falls, Idaho. His father, Arlon, owned a grocery retailer and a farm and was additionally a musician. His mom, Una (Davis) Bastian, took care of the house.
He majored in music training at Brigham Younger College, graduating in 1975. He served as director of the college’s marching band and, with Ashton, wrote a program that helped choreograph performances. He earned his grasp’s diploma in laptop science in 1978.
In 1985, The Orem-Geneva Instances famous the success of the native firm.
“It’s arduous to imagine,” the paper wrote, “that an organization with such humble beginnings may change into one of many main (if not the main) rivals within the microcomputer phrase processing business.”
Mr. Bastian and his spouse divorced in 1993. She handed away in 2016.
She married Clint Ford in 2018.
Mr. Ford is survived by his sons, Rick, Darren, Jeff and Robert; two sisters, Camille Cox and Marietta Peterson; a brother, Reese Bastian; and 14 grandchildren.
For Mr. Bastian, popping out was a terrifying and hopeful expertise on the identical time.
“I don’t assume straight folks may even think about the confusion and concern {that a} homosexual particular person’s life seems like proper now,” he instructed The Salt Lake Tribune. “All of your goals, plans, the whole lot falls aside. The entire basis of your life falls aside. You’ll be able to both keep the course or observe your coronary heart and go the place each human being goals of going: everlasting happiness.”