The SDM Foundation opened their doors to people who needed technology help on July 11, 2016. That makes 2026 our 10th Anniversary of providing free help to everyone wanting to learn more about their devices, apps and websites. Are you curious about the creation of the SDM Foundation and who SDM (Stuart D McIntosh) was? Read on!
the idea of the SDM Foundation
2006 – The original Plan
Stuart McIntosh and Kristin Thorp worked together from 1984 until Stuart’s death, at the age of 93, in 2015. Because of their age difference, in the early 2000s they began brainstorming about Kristin’s future. Stuart wanted some aspect of their work together to continue, and the idea of a nonprofit foundation was born. The plan was for the foundation’s initial funding to be transferred upon Stuart’s death and Kristin to be the trustee responsible for the implementation.
2015 – creation of the SDM Foundation
The trust was created after Stuart McIntosh’s death in January 2015. Its mission, to help non technical people use technology. It took a full year to settle the estate, to file for and receive 501(c)(3) status, and to transfer the initial funding. Once complete, it was just a matter of getting started.
Guiding Principals
Kristin, as the Executive Director of SDM Foundation, had spent many hours conceiving of a plan for delivering this mission. There were many iterations of ideas that included a stand alone office, lessons in different locations, an equipment lending library, and many others. Kristin knew from her 30+ year relationship with Stuart that these guiding ideas would provide the most help for the most people.
- Meet people one on one and in small groups
- Be a local resource that was not an intimidating place to ask for help
- Help a diverse group of people from all ages and economic groups
- Be available especially for people who are new to technology, including older people
- Focus on patience: listen, meet people where they are and move on from that point
- Teach people what they want to learn, not what you think they should learn
- Trained, paid staff who understand how to do this work
2016 – Opening the doors
When deciding where to locate, we started looking right in our own backyard.
Kristin has lived in Melrose since 1990. She and her family have established deep roots, with connections to many people and organizations. In addition, Melrose is easily accessible for people around the Boston area, with both MBTA bus lines and the Orange Line. Melrose has a vibrant senior population, and a strong nonprofit community which also positioned it as a good fit for the service we were planning.
We started looking for a storefront in Melrose to set up shop. Preferring to be downtown meant there were not many spaces to choose from. When 465 Main St became available we jumped on it.Â
By July, the shop was set up, and all of the equipment ordered. On July 11, 2016, we opened our doors. We had three employees and we were open from 9 am to 4 pm Monday through Friday. The first days we were often on the sidewalk explaining what we did in order to lure people in. But within a few short weeks, with the help of a couple articles in the local papers, we started to get busy. We have never looked back!
In 2016 the SDM Foundation structure was changed from a trust to a corporation. This added a wonderful board of directors to help support our mission.
2021 – Moving to a new shop
Late in 2020, as our five year lease was nearing the end, we started to explore our options. Originally, we planned to stay at 465 Main St for five more years. As we looked around, we saw that the commercial unit at 406 Main Street was available. The unit is accessible, with a ramp in back. This is important, given our clientele. Moving to this new space allowed us to start thinking about new ways to deliver our services. SDM Foundation moved from 465 Main St to 406 Main St in February 2021, doubling our footprint and opening our horizons.
2026 – 10 years on and Going strong
Over the last five years in our “new” shop we have added staff. We have increased our small group and individual appointments. We are using our upstairs offices for writing blog posts and recording videos, which has exploded our online content which is accessible to everyone. The ability to work in a quiet environment while appointments are going on in other parts of the shop is invaluable to our plans for growth.
We allow other people and organizations to use our space from time to time. The space is sunny and inviting. We are easy to find, and we know we can stay as long as we choose. We couldn’t be happier here!
2026 is our 10th Anniversary year. We are spending this year celebrating the work that we have done, and the people who have supported us. We are setting ourselves up for the next ten years, and making plans for what that will look like.
And 2026 is the year that we look to our future by promoting Sara Murray to the position of Executive Director. The title change is more than window dressing. It is a statement about our long term vision and our plan to be providing this service for many years to come. Read our announcement in our newsletter The SDM Download.
Who Was Stuart Donald McIntosh?
In the beginning
Stuart was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1921. His father sold insurance and was a city counselor, and his mother was a seamstress. He was an only child, he was very bright, and excelled in school.
Both of Stuart’s parents passed away when he was still young, and he lived for several years with an older Aunt and Uncle. He stepped into his dad’s job of selling insurance, which he continued until he went to Glasgow University.
Due to his Chemistry degree, Stuart was assigned to work in the oil fields at Abadan during WW II. This is where he developed his interest in information systems. He told many stories about managing the records needed to manage the oil flowing through the pipeline.
Stuart lived in several places after the war, including South Africa. In Cape Town he focused on the design and printing of physical business forms and Kardex systems.
During this time his belief took shape that business people should have more control over their data. Businesses should not have to fit into forms that already exist. Forms should be designed specifically for each business and their practices. This was the driving force behind the computer software work that Stuart did for the rest of his life. We call it User Centered Design now.
(Side note: If you haven’t ever seen a Kardex system, check out this Wikipedia article. We have several of his Kardex materials here at the shop as well.)
Stuart didn’t have siblings, and his only family were distant cousins who were much older than he was, but he had a couple of very good friends who filled that spot. Ranee and Barrie, and their daughter Jean were like family to Stuart and they lived together on and off over the years.
Moving into digital technology
As the 1960s came along, Stuart could see that computers were going to be the future. He moved from Scotland to the US for a job at the Stanford Research Institute in Berkeley California. The job at SRI didn’t pay well, so Stuart lived at the YMCA. But he was involved in cutting edge computing, which was what was most important.
He met and worked with people like Doug Englebart, and even met Joan Biaz while he lived in Palo Alto. Eventually he moved to Cambridge, MA for a job with MIT. There he continued to work on data base management systems. ADMINS (Administrative Data Methods for Information Naming Systems) was the name of their software. It processed various data sets such as census data and municipality financial data.
The MIT Archive maintains a collection of Stuart’s documents. You can access a list of them by following this link to Stuart D. McIntosh in the MIT Archive.
After several years at MIT, Stuart and his partner, a graduate student, took Admins private and created a company, ADMINS, Inc. ADMINS was a 4GL (4th generation programming language). This means it was more english like that 3rd generation languages like C, Java, Python or Fortran, making it easier for nonprogrammers to use.
ADMINS systems were installed at the Boston Public Library and at several large New York banks. Eventually they focussed on developing financial systems for cities and towns across the US. Their niche was programming systems that financial officers could set up and keep up, without relying on an IT department. ADMINS ran on minicomputers, specifically Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 and later VAX.
Business Focus
Even as ADMINS grew, Stuart’s main interest was helping business people specify what they needed their computing system to do. Stuart’s internal research project was called ADAAPS (ADMINS Application Assembly Process System). ADAAPS was a series of digital forms and reports that walked a business person through the requirements definition stage, resulting in executable code that ran on the ADMINS system. In 1987 Stuart and his partner sold ADMINS Inc and Stuart started to work independently with Kristin.
After Admins Inc
In 1987, Stuart and Kristin continued the software development work on a Mac II with a black and white monitor and a dot matrix printer. At the time, this seemed wildly high tech. The computing landscape changed many times in the next 30 years. None of which could have been anticipated.
The Internet was only available to the businesses, governments and educational institutions that were its backbone. When AOL came along in 1985, the Internet was suddenly available to anyone. There still was no World Wide Web. Although the web technically started in 1989, it took years to become recognizable as the precursor to what we see now.
Most information on the early Internet had to be accessed through Usenet News Groups and via FTP file sharing. But it wasn’t long before the web took hold and the world changed again. In the early days, Stuart might have been the only individual member of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
Over the years, Stuart’s designs incorporated all of the SGML and XML based standards. His work explored object orientation through the OMG (no not that OMG, this was the Object Management Group), and used Apple’s HyperCard programming language for a time. It was a varied and interesting research project!
Stuart and Kristin used his personal medical experiences to develop electronic medical records. The focus was always on an individual being able to keep track of their various experiences over time, linking between related records. These endeavors did not result in software products that were commercially available, but they were cutting edge in their own way.
When not Working
Stuart had a full life. He lived to the age of 93. Stuart lived in the Central Square/Inman Square area of Cambridge for nearly 50 years. He walked the neighborhoods and squares every day. He also enjoyed staying at his second home on Nantucket, and he shared that love with his friends. Ed often took him back and forth to the Island, which allowed Stuart to keep traveling into his 90’s.
Stuart continued to work, in a fashion, all his life. Toward the end, he really enjoyed using Google Maps. We explored his old Glasgow neighborhoods and “traveled” up to Inverness to “see” places he remembered.
The gift of SDM Foundation is now being enjoyed by many more people than one could ever have guessed. We are confident that he would be proud of the direction SDM Foundation has taken. And we enjoy telling the story to anyone who wondered how SDM began.
