Bruce Bastian, a founding father of the WordPerfect Company, whose phrase processor was the favored software for writing throughout the early days of non-public computing — and who later, after popping out as homosexual, renounced his Mormon religion and funded L.G.B.T.Q. causes — died on June 16 at his dwelling in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 76.
Michael Marriott, the chief director of the B.W. Bastian Basis, mentioned the trigger was issues of pulmonary fibrosis.
Mr. Bastian was ending graduate college at Brigham Younger College within the late Nineteen Seventies when he based the corporate that turned WordPerfect with Alan C. Ashton, his laptop science professor and a grandson of David O. McKay, the influential former president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Within the Eighties and early ’90s, Mr. Bastian and Mr. Ashton have been on the forefront of constructing computer systems extra productive for each day duties. Years later, they turned adversaries within the authorized battle over homosexual marriage.
Extremely customizable, with a free buyer help line, WordPerfect emerged from a crowded market of upstart phrase processors because the go-to selection of recent private laptop customers. (Amongst its followers was Philip Roth, who used it till he retired in 2012, lengthy after this system was supplanted in reputation by Microsoft Phrase.)
“WordPerfect had a fame for being very user-friendly,” Matthew Kirschenbaum, an English professor on the College of Maryland and the writer of “Observe Adjustments: A Literary Historical past of Phrase Processing” (2016), mentioned in an interview. “It was clear and trendy. A lot of the display was given over to the doc you have been writing, versus numerous menus and the equipment of the software program.”
Mr. Bastian wrote a lot of the software program code. Mr. Ashton ran the enterprise facet. By 1991, the corporate managed 50 p.c of the phrase processing market and was producing greater than $500 million in gross sales. It employed greater than 4,000 folks, most of them on the firm’s headquarters in Orem, Utah — a whole bunch of miles from Silicon Valley.
“In a world wherein Silicon Valley corporations thrive, WordPerfect Corp. is a little bit of an oddball,” Private Computing journal wrote in a 1988 cowl article in regards to the firm. “At 4,000 ft above sea degree, Utah’s Nice Basin isn’t precisely high-tech headquarters. The air in Orem is dry in December, the snow falling on the Wasatch Entrance east of Salt Lake Metropolis is the powdery fluff skilled skiers crave.”
The corporate’s location wasn’t the one oddity.
“There’s one other factor that distinguishes this high-tech firm from most others,” the journal famous. “Like two-thirds of Utah’s inhabitants, most WordPerfect staff are Mormons.”
That included each its founders — considered one of whom was harboring a secret that tormented him.
In 1976, Mr. Bastian married his finest buddy, Melanie Laycock. They finally had 4 sons. However all alongside, he later instructed interviewers, Mr. Bastian knew he was homosexual.
Someday within the late Eighties, whereas on a enterprise journey in Amsterdam, he kissed one other man.
“After I bought again to Utah, I used to be a large number,” Mr. Bastian mentioned in an interview with Outwords, a corporation that information oral histories in regards to the L.G.B.T.Q. motion. “It was simply so transformational and so troublesome. I stroll within the door and see my little boys and I simply thought: ‘Uh, jeez. What am I going to do?’”
He instructed his spouse a number of days later.
“We tried to make it work,” he instructed Outwords. “I attempted to be homosexual and be a Mormon on the identical time. That’s not possible.”
Mr. Bastian got here out publicly a number of years later and withdrew his identify from the information of the Mormon Church. He acquired nameless emails from folks expressing their disgust about his sexuality. Nonetheless, he felt liberated.
“It was such a reduction to truly not need to lie anymore,” he instructed the podcast “Mormon Tales.”
However there was hassle brewing in WordPerfect’s enterprise.
The corporate’s software program dominated the marketplace for computer systems working on the MS-DOS working system, nevertheless it was sluggish to roll out a model for the rising Microsoft Home windows platform. Microsoft additionally bundled Phrase into its productiveness suite of applications, Microsoft Workplace, which shortly ate into WordPerfect’s market share.
In 1994, Mr. Bastian and Mr. Ashton offered their privately held firm to Novell for $1.4 billion. Novell later offered the software program to Corel, which is now referred to as Alludo. WordPerfect nonetheless has a loyal following within the authorized world.
Mr. Bastian left the corporate after the announcement of the sale to Novell. By means of his basis, he turned a serious philanthropist, funding arts and cultural applications all through Utah. He additionally supported L.G.B.T.Q. causes and joined the board of administrators of the Human Rights Marketing campaign, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group.
In 2008, the Mormon Church urged its members to financially help the passage of Proposition 8, a poll measure in California outlawing same-sex marriage. Mr. Ashton contributed $1 million.
“I needed to verify the long run is nice for my kids and grandchildren,” he instructed The Salt Lake Tribune. “That’s why I gave.”
Mr. Bastian contributed $1 million to opposition efforts.
The episode, he mentioned, left him feeling betrayed by Mr. Ashton. It was, he instructed The Tribune, “actually painful for me.”
Bruce Wayne Bastian was born on March 23, 1948, in Twin Falls, Idaho. His father, Arlon, owned a grocery retailer and a farm and was additionally a musician. His mom, Una (Davis) Bastian, managed the family.
He majored in music training at Brigham Younger College, graduating in 1975. He was the director of the college’s marching band and, with Mr. Ashton, wrote a program that helped choreograph performances. He acquired his grasp’s in laptop science in 1978.
In 1985, The Orem-Geneva Occasions took observe of the native firm’s success.
“It’s onerous to imagine,” the newspaper wrote, “that an organization with such humble beginnings might grow to be one of many main rivals (if not the main) within the microcomputer phrase processing trade.”
Mr. Bastian and his spouse divorced in 1993. She died in 2016.
He married Clint Ford in 2018.
Mr. Ford survives him, as do his sons, Rick, Darren, Jeff and Robert; two sisters, Camille Cox and Marietta Peterson; a brother, Reese Bastian; and 14 grandchildren.
For Mr. Bastian, popping out was each terrifying and hopeful.
“I don’t assume straight folks can start to think about the internal turmoil and worry at this second in a homosexual particular person’s life,” he instructed The Salt Lake Tribune. “All of your goals, plans, every little thing falls aside. The entire basis of your life crumbles. You’ll be able to keep the course or comply with your coronary heart and go to the place each human being goals of going — to happiness ever after.”
