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In an effort to find a more appropriately-sized and tech-oriented office, longtime newspaper industry vendor SCS has moved its headquarters to Bethlehem, PA.  “The new office space better accommodates our split remote/in-office work policy and is
better suited to cultivate innovation in a software development environment,” according to Kurt Jackson, SCS's Vice President and General Manager. "We have included in the office all the modern amenities you would expect in 2021.” “Additionally, our new office features four new aquariums which house over 80 different fish," states Jackson. “Multiple species are represented, including twenty black neon tetras, six Congo tetras, three white skirt tetras, a 14 -inch common pleco, a sorority of female bettas, two zebra angel fish, seven Dalmatian mollies, fifteen various platys and seven genetically-modified glow fish.” Later this year, the company plans to invite its nearby customers and their families to visit the new facility. In the meantime, you can click here to take a peek. After successfully implementing Layout-8000 and SCS/ClassPag in 2018, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette selected SCS/Track to bolster its production environment and replace its legacy system. The Post-Gazette, owned by Toledo-based media company, Block Communications (BCI), went live with SCS/Track in July of 2019.
Meantime, The BCI-owned Toledo Blade—which has been an SCS customer for more than two decades—has decided to join its sister paper in moving forward with SCS/Track. The Blade is projected to go live with SCS/Track in the next few weeks. Now that the two newspapers are running the same production systems from SCS—Layout-8000,™ SCS/ClassPag™, and SCS/Track—they serve as disaster recovery backups for one another and can seamlessly transition their workload between Toledo and Pittsburgh in a disaster situation. About Block Communications: Founded in 1900, Block Communications, Inc. is a privately-held diversified media holding company headquartered in Toledo, OH. In September of 1975 skilled developer and new mother, Martha Cichelli, started her business in Allentown, PA. Her husband, Richard, was research manager for computer applications at the American Newspaper Publishers Association Research Institute. He was also Co-Director of the Computer Science Group in the Graduate School of Mathematics at Lehigh University.
Richard has often said that one of his happiest days was starting work at the ANPA/RI and realizing he would get to do computer science research that would help those who were charged with holding the powerful accountable. "It's in the Constitution." he would often say. Martha brought skills she learned from DuPont and Pennsylvania Power and Light to her new business. Her accomplishments included developing and supporting the data management software used by PP&L in all its applications. She called her business Software Consulting Services. Her first customers included a major manufacturer (tracking court cases), a drug maker (indexing a library of research papers) and several hospitals. One of her biggest coups was getting a contract to build Apple II-based desktop applications for American Express. In 1977 the Apple II+ was proving to be a great little personal computer. It had Visicalc, the first popular spreadsheet. It had a Pascal development system. It had many quirky applications that made use of its open bus (motherboard slots) architecture. What it didn't have were sophisticated applications. Thus the interest from American Express. As a new type of entrepreneur and a woman in technology, she was written up in Inc Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. Martha has been honored with the prestigious Lehigh Valley Business Journal 2016 Woman of Influence award. About early SCS systems - one was used for managing intravenous solutions at several hospitals. It's a little tricky when a software bug could lead to using the wrong cancer medicine and kill a patient. Martha and Richard still own SCS and serve their many clients every day. SCS remains a family-owned business. Over 300 media businesses with nearly 2,000 publications in 10 countries are using SCS systems. Five different languages are supported. Many of the technologies on which newspaper systems are built were first realized by SCS. Some of these include the first extensions to desktop layout applications that made them viable tools for newspaper pagination (e.g., the first XTension for QuarkXPress, commodity hardware from Dell, free open-source software, etc.) SCS is a modest company that serves newspapers of all sizes (and other businesses). Longevity characterizes SCS's staff. Up until recently the average tenure at SCS was 18 years. Most customers are on a first name basis with our support staff and (its less nerdy) developers. In 2019, SCS hired six new developers. Several were to fill two positions left by those who retired after 25 years with the company. The others were needed because of the growth due to the successes of SCS's newest products and the recent demises of other vendors. All SCS staff are well-paid US citizens. SCS competes effectively with the FAANG companies for the best computer science graduates. No SCS customer has failed to publish due to a failure of any of their SCS systems. The entire SCS staff is committed to the company's motto. "SCS builds trusted newspaper systems." |
SCS Team
Articles in the SCS Blog are written by SCS employees and associated news outlets. Archives
June 2021
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Copyright 2021 Software Consulting Services, LLC