A persistent problem solver, Deborah A. Lockhart’s day-to-day responsibilities as a computer programmer included taking someone’s idea of what they want it to do and making that happen. She got into the development and designing of the idea, deciding what it has to do and designing how they fit together. There are all sorts of jobs in that process, and Ms. Lockhart has done most of them except sales. She designs programs, tests it and gets it out there in the field.
Ms. Lockhart began her professional career as a programmer aid at Ling Temco Vought in Grand Prairie, Texas, in 1966, remaining in this role for two years before becoming a programmer analyst at Trinity University in San Antonio from 1967 to 1968 and Information Systems Technology in Dallas from 1969 to 1971. She then served as a systems engineer at Optimum Systems Inc., in Dallas from 1972 to 1975 before joining University Computing Co. in Dallas as a senior programmer analyst from 1971 to 1972 and again from 1975 to 1981. Shifting into finance, Ms. Lockhart managed CIF Project Banking Systems Inc., in Dallas from 1981 to 1983 and was the project manager at Shared Financial Systems in Dallas from 1983 to 1993. Leading up to retirement, she was the lead software engineer at Bank of America from 1993 to 2010, a part-time iOS coder at Sound Solutions from 2011 to 2014 and a program re-platform analyst at Fidelity Investments from 2012 to 2014.
Ms. Lockhart had many smaller jobs up until her employment at Shared Financial Systems, a start-up company where she started as a coder and eventually became a project manager, which introduced her to the financial industry. She started working for CIF Project Banking Systems Inc., where she actually worked on ATMs, which, at that time, were not hooked up to a network. They were on an independent network, and Ms. Lockhart was in on the discussion on putting the ATMs online in connection with the banks and implementing the new policy of use.
Prior to the start of her career, Ms. Lockhart pursued a formal education at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, earning a Bachelor of Science in 1967. She then attended the University of Texas at Arlington, where she completed postgraduate coursework in 1971. After graduating, Ms. Lockhart was the president of Chapel Downs Community Center from 1986 to 1987, and was a board member and an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher for Literacy Achieve in the Vickery Meadow neighborhood of Dallas. She also serves as an elder at her local Presbyterian church since 1989 and is a member of Mensa International.
Ms. Lockhart’s parents were very persistent. Her father started a masonry contracting business at the end of World War II. Her parents also taught themselves geology and bought a rock crushing company, Texas Architectural Aggregate (TAA). Her brother, David Williams, is now the president of the company. What inspired or motivated Ms. Lockhart on her professional journey was getting things working and getting closer to a working module. If it didn’t work yesterday, you work until you get it right and progress inspired her. Today, she is the proud mother of two wonderful children, Amy Louise and Adam Conan.
