Jack Cole (businessman)
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Jack Ridnour Cole (February 12, 1920, Lincoln, Nebraska - July 29, 2007, Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota) was an American entrepreneur and businessman who used early computer technology to create "crisscross directories", which are used to sort millions of people by street address. These directories are used by, among others, detectives, debt collectors, and telemarketers.
Jack Cole earned an undergraduate degree in business from the University of Nebraska and went to work for IBM as a sales representative in Dallas. In 1947 Mr. Cole began publishing the Cole Directory, a set of reverse guides to various United States cities which listed a city’s residents by address and by telephone number by using IBM's punchcards. He hired typists to keyboard the entire Dallas telephone book onto punch cards. Directories for other cities soon followed, with Mr. Cole drawing on census records, tax rolls and other data to supplement the information in the phone book. Cole Directories, which now cover about 200 cities, are published in print and digital forms by the MetroGroup Corporation of Lincoln, Nebraska.
A widower, Jack Cole died of cancer, aged 87; he was survived by three children, eight grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and a sister.
