Frank Moss (technologist) - Education and Early Career

Education and Early Career

Moss was born Franklin Moss on April 20, 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. His father was Sam Moss, a local radio personality who had a weekly radio show, The Sam Moss Show, in Baltimore for 30 years. He is the middle child of older brother Billy, a retired successful restauranteur; and younger sister Ivy.

As a teenager, Moss became enthralled with America’s fledgling space program, which informed his choice of higher education and career. He received a BS in aerospace and mechanical sciences from Princeton University, and both his MS and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. In the course of his academic work at MIT, he became exposed to high-performance computing and networking technologies that would later became part of the Internet. His interest in the broad commercial potential of these technologies led him to pursue his professional career in the computer and software industries.

He began his career at IBM's scientific center in Haifa, Israel, where he also taught at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. He later held various research and management positions at IBM's Yorktown Heights (NY) Research Center, working on advanced development projects in the areas of networking and distributed computing; and executive management positions at Apollo Computer, Inc., and Lotus Development Corporation.