Donald C. Wetzel (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman known for holding the USA patent to the

automatic teller machine An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, fund ...

. Born in

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, he graduated from

Jesuit High School (New Orleans) Jesuit High School is a private, non-profit, Catholic college-preparatory high school (grades 8–12) for boys run by the USA Central and Southern Province of the Society of Jesus in Mid-City New Orleans Louisiana. The school was founded in 1847 ...

in 1947 and got a

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in foreign trade from

Loyola University New Orleans Loyola University New Orleans is a private Jesuit university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Originally established as Loyola College in 1904, the institution was chartered as a university in 1912. It bears the name of the Jesuit founder, Saint Igna ...

(1951). He was also a professional in minor-league baseball for the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division ...

farm system (1948–50), and began working for IBM in his hometown (1951–55) before moving to

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. Accord ...

as branch manager (1955) and as consultant to the banking industry in

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_ ...

(1956–1963) and

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

(1963–65). His engineering fame came while working as

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

company Docutel Corporation of

Irving, Texas Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau ...

which he joined in 1968. He designed the ''Docuteller'' machine (1968) that was first deployed at

Chemical Bank Chemical Bank was a bank with headquarters in New York City from 1824 until 1996. At the end of 1995, Chemical was the third-largest bank in the U.S., with about $182.9 billion in assets and more than 39,000 employees around the world. Beginning ...

in New York City in 1969 and was patented in 1973. Later he founded three financial systems companies, the Financial Systems & Equipment Corporation (1973), Electronic Banking Systems, Inc. (1979) and Autosig Systems, Inc. (1982) from which he retired in 1989, still living in

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

Awards

IEEE Simon Ramo Medal The IEEE Simon Ramo Medal is an award for exceptional achievement in systems engineering and systems science, and was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1982. The medal is named for Simon Ramo, one of the founders of the TRW corporati ...

(2006)biography
from

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operatio ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wetzel, Donald American inventors Jesuit High School (New Orleans) alumni People from New Orleans Loyola University New Orleans alumni Living people People from Dallas 1929 births