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Jim Goodnight Born
James Goodnight was born to Albert Goodnight and Dorothy Patterson in Salisbury, NC. He lived in Greensboro until he was 12, when his family moved to Wilmington. -
Goodnight Marries Ann Baggett
In 1966, Goodnight married Ann Baggett, with which he has 3 children. He met her while he was in college and she was in Meredith College. -
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Goodnight Works on Apollo Project
Apollo Program Goodnight received his Master's in statistics in 1968. While working on his Master's, his curiosity was piqued over the idea of a man being sent to the moon. His programming skills helped him land a position at a company building electronic equipment for the ground stations that communicated with the Apollo space capsules. While working on the Apollo program, Goodnight experienced a work environment that had an ann. turnover rate of about 50%. This shaped his views on corporate culture. -
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Goodnight Works at NCSU
After working on the Apollo Project, Goodnight returned to NCSU and earned a PhD in statistics. He became a faculty member from 1972-1976. -
Goodnight Co-Founds SAS, 1976
In 1976, Goodnight joined other faculty members at NCSU in a research project to create a statistical analysis system (SAS) for analyzing data. The project was primarily funded by the USDA. When the software had 100 customers in 1976, Goodnight and three others left the university to form SAS Institute. -
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James Goodnight and SAS
Goodnight remained CEO of SAS as it grew from $138k in its first year of business to $420m in 1993 and $2.4b by 2010. Under his leadership, the company grew every year.
SAS
