Thomas Eugene Kurtz, cofounder of True BASIC, Inc., was a professor of mathematics and computer science at Dartmouth College for thirty-seven years. During that time, he and John G. Kemeny, with whom he collaborated on many projects, designed and developed the Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS) and the computer programming language, Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC. For those accomplishments, Kurtz and Kemeny received the first Pioneer's Day award from the American Federation of Information Processing Society in 1974.

Kurtz was born on February 22, 1928, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Oscar Christ Kurtz, who worked in various capacities at the International Lion's Club headquarters, and Helen Bell Kurtz. Interested in science from his youth, Kurtz entered Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, with the intention of majoring in physics. He also took all of the mathematics courses available. Following the suggestion of an adviser to consider a career in statistics...