By Daniel Ackerman

It was music that sparked William Oliver’s lifelong passion for computers.

Growing up in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he was an avid keyboard player. “But I got into music school on voice,” says Oliver, “because it was a little bit easier.”

But once in school, first at State University of New York at Fredonia then the University of Rochester, he hardly shied away from a challenge. “I was studying sound recording technology, which led me to digital signal processing,” explains Oliver. “And that led me to computers.” Twenty-five years later, he’s still stuck on them.