Fletcher Jones

Personal

Vocation

Lifestyle

American businessman, computer pioneer and thoroughbred racehorse owner. In 1959, Fletcher Jones went into business with Roy Nutt, founding a software services company named Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), when Jones, who ran the business and marketing end of things, obtained a contract from Honeywell that gave their business profitability and respect within the industry. In 1961, the company made a major move into the space industry when they obtained a contract to support NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Flight Operations Facility. Within four years of its founding, CSC became the largest software company in the United States. Taking their business public with an IPO listed on the American Stock Exchange, Jones and Nutt and became multi-millionaires. As a hobby business, Fletcher Jones became involved in the breeding and racing of Thoroughbred horses. In 1966, he acquired a 3,912-acre (15.83 km2) property near Santa Ynez, California that he named Westerly Stud Farms. The stud's best known horse was Typecast, a filly who won the 1972 Eclipse Award as the American Champion Older Female Horse. Jones purchased art, particularly works by the French Impressionists. He owned paintings by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre Bonnard, Camille Pissarro. As well, he acquired four Picassos, notably his 1901 self-portrait titled Yo, Picasso. On 7 November 1972, the forty-one-year-old Jones died when the plane he was piloting home crashed into a hillside. Link to Wikipedia biography