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Ivan Selin was a 15-year-old New York City kid who loved math when he arrived at Yale University. By the age of 33, he had earned two doctorates; written a book; become fluent in six languages; and, as one of Robert McNamara's "whiz kids," headed up the planning staff at the Defense Department. He had nowhere to go but - into business.
Starting a business "didn't seem like such a big deal," Selin recalls. "We were young enough and the times were good enough so we could afford to be wrong."
American Management Systems was created in 1970 to provide management-information services to government agencies and private businesses. The five founders raised $300,000 in venture capital from Lehman Brothers. Then they wrote to 24 of their former Pentagon colleagues, all then ensconced in middle-management jobs around the country, waggishly offering consulting services "from some of the people who brought you Vietnam and the ABM."
After 18 months AMS won its first big contract, the Burlington Northern Railroad. But it wasn't until 1976, when they were hired by the bankrupt city of New York to design a budget and accounting system, that the company took off. It had the system up and running one and a half years later. AMS had made its deadline - and its name as a can-do company.
In its first decade, AMS grew into the nation's 40th-largest computer-services and supply firm, with revenues near $60 million. When they went public in 1979, Selin could say with pride, "What a boring bunch of people. We're just a bunch of bright people who've done what we set out to do."
In the '80s, Ivan Selin also put his energies into the community: As head of Corporations Against Drug Abuse, he recruited area CEOs to help combat the drug scourge.
"After 18 years without a promotion," Selin says with a smile, he was ready for a change. He also believed it was important for AMS clients and stockholders to see the company thrive without its original leadership. So Selin left in 1990 to become chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He served under Presidents Bush and Clinton, then left government again to start Phoenix International, a DC-based family company that funds business and development projects in Asia.
His professional life has included four complete career changes, from government into private life twice - a pattern possible only in the United States, he believes.
"I've never looked back on any job," Ivan Selin says. "Variety is very stimulating."
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