Honoring the Past, Designing the Future: An Interview with RISA's Founder

Bruce Bates founded RISA in September 1987 with the practical goal of creating a tool that would allow engineers to take advantage of the growing capabilities and availability of personal computers.  What started as an internal tool for analyzing two dimensional frames evolved into the powerful RISA Suite we have today with 10 connected programs that support structural engineers throughout their workflow.  In this anniversary interview, Bruce shares firsthand reflections on the early days of RISA. 

To celebrate our anniversary and celebrate this journey, RISA is offering a special promotion for the month of September.

What originally inspired you to start RISA, and what problem were you trying to solve for engineers? 

Back in the mid-1980’s, I was employed by Fluor Corporation in their Structural Systems group. We developed and supported mainframe-based structural engineering applications. When IBM released their first personal computer around that time, Fluor acquired a supply of them and I was assigned the task of figuring out what, if any, use this new device could have for the structural engineering department. In collaboration with the structural engineering department, I developed a PC based 2-dimensional frame analysis program using the BASIC programming language, ingeniously named PC-Frame. PC-Frame proved to be very popular with the structural engineers at Fluor, and even found its way to many structural engineers outside of Fluor.  

In 1986, I approached my managers at Fluor and suggested we market PC-Frame as a commercial application, but they weren’t interested. After surveying what was currently available commercially, I felt I could do something better, so I left Fluor to give it a shot. I briefly collaborated with Enercalc in early 1987, but that didn’t pan out and I was on my own.

The structural software available for PCs at the time was mostly “batch input”, at least for indeterminate solvers. The user had to edit a file externally, input that file into the program, and get the results back in another external file, the same way mainframe software worked; no visualization, no iteration and model verification was a herculean task.

My emphasis with RISA was interactivity (the “I” in RISA). I wanted the user to enter their information, visually see their model, manipulate their information, solve the model, view the results, iterate and solve again, etc., all within the software. Rapid and Interactive went hand in hand. As commonplace as that is today, it was not the case back in the 1980s.  

What do you remember most about the early days of building RISA? 

Developing the first version of RISA-2D took longer than I thought it would and I ran out of money. I had to go back to Fluor as a contract programmer. I was working during the day at Fluor, and then on RISA at night, plus weekends. I was working out of a spare room in the house I rented. Once I started selling RISA-2D Version 1.0, I was able to leave the contract job and commit to RISA full time, as well as move into my first real office on Skypark Circle in Irvine.  

I had help with answering the phone, processing orders, and printing manuals, but I was doing everything else: development, technical support, testing, documentation, marketing, etc. During this time I almost blew the most 
important opportunity of my life.  

I met my future wife Lisa during those days and we went on our first date, and it went very well; I definitely wanted a second. Literally the day after that first date, I got a call from a professor at UC Berkeley who wanted to offer an educational version of RISA-2D to the structural engineering students there, but it had to be ready within two weeks to get it into the bookstore that fall.

This was a great opportunity for RISA but it meant 16 hour days for those two weeks to get it done, which in turn meant no time for a second date with Lisa. I explained this to her and very fortunately for me she was understanding, and I got that second date after the two weeks. What I thought was an important opportunity at UC Berkeley ended up being meaningless compared to the opportunity I could have lost! 

What were some of the biggest challenges in those first years?

The biggest challenge for me was marketing. Writing the software was the easier task, selling it was another matter. Once I finished RISA-2D Version 1.0, I did a mailing to around 1500 structural engineers in southern California. Each mail piece included a demo disk, a manual, a flyer and an order form, for a total cost with postage of about $1.50 each. That was a big bill for me at the time, but I “conservatively” expected to get 50 to 100 orders. I managed to sell 3 programs with that mailing, at $250 each.

So I needed a new plan. Plan B was to personally demonstrate RISA-2D to engineers in their office (become a door-to-door salesman). I visited over 100 offices, from Ventura to San Diego, up to 4 offices a day. One of the biggest challenges with this approach was that many of these engineers didn’t even have a personal computer, so I had to bring mine. Keep in mind, laptops didn’t exist yet, nor did flat panel screens. I was lugging around my full-size computer along with the CRT monitor (Google it) and a big, plug-in keyboard. The challenge wasn’t just to convince the engineer to buy RISA, I often had to also convince them to buy a computer. Side note, this also explains why mailing demo disks to engineers who don’t have computers is not a winning strategy.  

These visits were very successful, resulting in a sale about 90% of the time. RISA-2D sold itself.  

When you look at RISA today, what stands out most to you about how the software has evolved?  

My primary goal was always the “I” in RISA; the Interactivity, though the “I” might more accurately mean Intuitive. Once I released RISA-2D, many of my initial clients immediately began asking when there would be a RISA-3D.  

Developing RISA-3D was, of course, an order of magnitude more complex than RISA-2D, but it had to maintain the intuitiveness RISA-2D was known for.  This was much more important than loading up the software with a bunch of analytical features nobody uses. I always embraced that philosophy during the 30 years I controlled RISA, and that philosophy has continued under Amber Freund’s leadership with Nemetschek.  

Adding analytical features is easy, there’s no magic there. The true magic is maintaining an intuitive, approachable interface and I believe that defines RISA today just as much as it did when I started. 

As we celebrate this milestone, what would you like to say to the engineers, firms, and customers who have been a part of RISA's story?

This journey has been a blessing for me and I feel very grateful for the support and trust granted me by RISA’s thousands of clients over the years. I always believed that if I took care of my customers, they would take care of me, and that’s exactly how it has worked out.

Important people from the early days include Wally Lieu, John Shipp, Alex Fattaleh and many others who supported and mentored me. Susan Wong and Dorothy Takahashi, both former co-workers at Fluor, stepped up and helped run RISA on a day to day basis in those early years, even when I couldn’t afford to pay them. Yuriy Chekryzhov, who was my guide during my USSR tour, became a close personal friend and set up RISA’s Ukraine group.  

I’m incredibly proud of RISA’s legacy and reputation. Amber Freund is a very big part of that; she’s done an exceptional job leading the company since my departure. Amber is the reason I could step aside with confidence; I never would have left without knowing the company was in good hands. It’s exciting to see how far RISA, with Nemetschek, can go.