Personal History

I was born in 1954 in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Mary and Dale Heckendorn, but I grew up in Oklahoma in the small college town of Norman. There I received a BA in Mathematics from the University of Oklahoma I got my MS in Computer Science from University of Arizona in Tucson. I worked for Hewlett-Packard for 15 years. First working in the Calculator Division in Corvallis, Oregon where I worked on the HP-75 handheld BASIC computer . This lovely rainy town is the home of Oregon State University. Later I moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to work on HP's LISP project and then HP's software engineering tools. I married Marilyn in 1988 and we moved into our own home in the same year. In 1995 I quit HP to start a new carreer in research and teaching. I enrolled as a graduate student in Computer Science Department at Colorado State University. and worked as a research assistant with Dr. Darrell Whitley in the Artificial Intelligence Group. In 1999, I graduated with my PhD in Computer Science from CSU and took a position with the University of Idaho Computer Science Department in Moscow, Idaho.

I live on the side of a hill overlooking Moscow with my wonderful wife Marilyn, two cats Banff and Suzie and two dogs Kate and Matty. Our dog Abbey used to share our lives but we lost her to cancer in 1998. We resuced a half German Shepherd Dog, half Corgi and have named her Matty. I enjoy bike riding, recreational computing and mathematics, hiking, and gardening. I also have the odd hobby of collecting dates and run a free Today in History electronic mail service. Mail me if you want to be added to the list. I have interests in the history of the Calendar, Mesoamerican Indians, Tiling, Combinatorics, Evolutionary processes, Complex Systems, Object Oriented Parsing. I pride myself on having an endless curiosity, a passion for ideas and a romantic nature which puts me a little out of touch with reality sometimes.

My Time Line































































PEOPLE
 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Robert Heckendorn (1954-)
Known Jack and Debbie (1979-)
Known Marilyn (1987-)
Banff (1987-)
Abbey (1990-1998)
Suzie (1995-)
Kate (1998-)
SCHOOLS/WORK
 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Grade School (1960-1972)
University of Oklahoma (1973-1977)
University of Arizona (1978-1979)
Hewlett-Packard (1980-1995)
Colorado State University (1996-1998)
University of Idaho (1999)
PLACES
 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Norman, Oklahoma (1955-1977)
Tucson, Arizona (1978-1979)
Corvallis, Oregon (1980-1984)
Fort Collins, Colorado (1985-1998)
Moscow, Idaho (1999)