John Aris – 1934 – 2010 Educated at Eton and Oxford, with a degree and life-long interests in the classics, joined LEO as a programmer in 1958.  A career in LEO and its successor companies, including Chief Business Systems Engineer for ICL in 1968 was followed by heading the computer department of the Imperial Group, then becoming director of the NCC.  He retained his interest in LEO up to the end of his life becoming a prominent and active member of the LEO Foundation and the LEO Computers Society.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/26/john-aris-obituary

http://www.vukutu.com/blog/2010/08/a-computer-pioneer/

http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res52.htm#i

Antony (Tony) Bernard Barnes – 1926-2000. Tony Barnes joined Lyons as a Management Trainee after graduating in 1947 working in the Statistical Office.  He transferred to the LEO programming team in November 1950 where his talents were quickly recognised.  In 1955 he accompanied Thomas Thompson to the USA on a six-week tour, visiting several computer manufacturers and users.  In January 1956 he became the Administrative Manager of the Design and Development Section of Leo Computers Limited and in June1959 the Production Director, reporting directly to Anthony Salmon, the main Lyons Board Director responsible for the whole LEO project.  He left Leo Computers Limited shortly after the merger with English Electric.

Maurice Blackburn – died 2016, LEO Engineer.  See also reminiscences of Anthony Robin Davies below.  Tony Morgan writes “Maurice was   very interesting person, a real gentleman with a small moustache. He had originally been a pilot with British South American Airways before it merged with British Overseas Airways. He was in Development at Minerva Road and his main claim to fame is in designing the Standard Interface Assembler for LEO III which connected industry compatible System 4 tape decks and also System 4 printers. This was particularly important for Post Office /British Telecom.. It had a unique type of logic element which made it difficult to understand and on which to diagnose faults. When we had problems in 1965 with what I called ‘watered down expertise’, Maurice ran two one week courses on it for engineers from around the country at PODPS, Kensington. There were a whole series of courses which I organised at that time.”

Peter Bird – born 1934, died 6^th August 2017. After a career in the Merchant Navyachieving his Masters certificate ‘discovered’ computing, studied programming and applied for Jobs in computing.  Interviewed by Lyons for an operator job and joined Lyons 1964 as an operator on the LEO III.  Promoted rapidly to Operations Manager, then overall Systems Manager.  After retirement became interested in the history of Lyons and in the LEO story resulting in the publication of his books on LEO and subsequently on Lyons the Food Empire. The LEO Computer Society book LEO Remembered is dedicated to Peter. Peter’s obituary was posted on the Guardian Newspaper website in the OTHER LIVES section on 10^thSeptember 2017 at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/10/peter-bird-obituary  On October 14^th it appeared on page 38 of the Guardian print edition in the Other Lives section of the Saturday edition. The obituary is also posted by Elisabetta Mori in In Memory

/ and Wikipedia posted an obituary at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bird_(IT_manager)

George Booth – Died 19^th September 1959, aged 90, Company Secretary and Director of J. Lyons, made the case to the Lyons Board for the company to commit itself to build a business computer and to collaborate with Cambridge University with its EDSAC project by providing some funding for the project in exchange for help in setting up the LEO project.  His support was crucial in getting the support of his fellow board members; Earlier responsible for recruiting John Simmons as someone to study and improve the efficiency of Lyons. Obituary written by Isidore Gluckstein in Lyons Mail October 1959.

Dan Broido – 1903-1990 Born in Siberia of politically active parents, refugee to Germany from Soviet oppression, took degree in Mechanical Engineering in Berlin, and became an engineer at the firm of Rotaprint, who sent him to the UK in 1934 to work in their London branch.  Worked for Caterpillar Tractors during World War II on nationally important work, and subsequently for a Company interested in developing automatic reading equipment, Broido filed over 100 patents including one of the earliest bar code systems.  The company was taken over by ICT but in 1956 he was recruited by LEO as Chief Mechanical Engineer charged with developing optical reading facilities.  This resulted in the development of Lector and later Autolector.  When LEO, and later ICL started selling computers in Eastern Europe including Russia, Broido played a key role in the success of that enterprise.  A biographical sketch of his carrer can be found on pages 202 to 203 in his book  LEO: the World’s First Business Computer.
http://www.kzwp.com/lyons.pensioners/obituary2B.htm (page 1)