Charles F. McConathy, age 73, Owner and President of ProMax Systems, Inc. died October 23rd, 2004, following a 2 year battle with colon cancer.He was born October 6th, 1931, in Temple, Texas.Charles F. McConathy was a noted hardware developer with many years of data storage experience dating back to Apple II, Apple III, and early IBM PC days. His initial company was CMC Computer Systems of Santa Ana, California. CMC was the first company to offer SCSI host adapters for the Apple II and one of the first to offer SCSI hard disk drives for the Macintosh. CMS Enhancements of Tustin, California purchased CMC Computer Systems in 1986 to begin their offering of Apple and Macintosh data storage systems. McConathy became their Apple Product Manager and later took over as Director of Marketing for all their product lines.
Prior to CMC Computer Systems McConathy spent thirty-five years in pre-press and advertising trade. His background helped him to become a expert in the configuration of computer systems for audio/video, desktop publishing, and graphic design. He has been a speaker at Seybold, CONCEPPTS, Color Connections, Macintosh Summit Conference, Publishing Conferences sponsored by Apple Computer, and other regional conferences over the world.
In 1988 he founded MicroNet Technology which grew to be one of the world’s largest third party suppliers of data storage systems. The company offered systems for Macintosh, Sun, SGI, RS/6000, Windows, and Novell Netware. Products were sold worldwide by top Resellers and distributors and won several industry awards for best storage device of the year. The company became the leader in development of high performance data storage systems especially for pre-press and multi-media. Charles McConathy's duties included marketing, advertising, product management, vendor negotiation, volume purchase agreements, contracts, pricing, costing, recruitment, press relations, and general management of the business. Early MicroNet offerings were based on the then famous Control Data Wren 3 and 4 hard disk drives with the unheard of capacity of 150 and 300 MB. The Wren Series of hard disk drives were noted for their reliability and high performance that reflected the charter of the company.
MicroNet's business grew quickly. An early news article in MacWeek regarding products of the new company created interest from around the world. Because of MicroNet’s rapid growth and the need for additional working capital McConathy sold his interest in 1989 to a group of investors. He continued as President of MicroNet until December of 1993. During his tenure the company reached almost $100,000,000 in annual sales and employeed 150 people.
After leaving MicroNet, Chalres formed ProMax Systems, Inc. in 1994 for the express purpose of developing high-end, Fast/Wide SCSI data storage systems for audio/video, graphics, and pre-press markets. With the advent of Desktop Video editing systems came the need for uninterrupted data transfers for flicker-free, 640 x 480, 30 fps, 24-bit color and 16-bit stereo sound. Learning to deal with disk drive thermal issues, the setting of mode select pages, development of impedance matched data cables for error free transfers, selecting suitable 16-Bit Wide SCSI host adapters and striping software, dealing with NuBus issues and patches required to deliver constant data was a challenge. Hundreds of hours of testing was required to build storage systems that would properly support VideoVision Studio, Telecast, TARGA 2000, and Media 100 running on Quadra and Power Macintosh computers. In addition productivity tests for graphics and PhotoShop was conducted to prove the worth of Fast/Wide SCSI systems.
With development and support complete ProMax began shipping Wide SCSI disk arrays for Quadra and Power Macintosh computers for video and pre-press applications during the fall of 1994. Technical support was available on America-on-Line, Compuserve, and AppleLink. ProMax quickly became known for video disk arrays that truly worked. Soon after ProMax began offering complete turnkey video editing systems that were based on Media 100 and Radius and later Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut product lines. In 1997 Apple awarded ProMax the Apple Specialist of the year award and again in 2000. In 2003 Sony also recognized ProMax for extraordinary level of performance and dedication.
Upon learning of his cancer Charles continued his work and plans to make sure his vision in ProMax would continue, and continued to impart his knowledge, ethics, and goals to his family of employees at ProMax.
The following is some background and notes written by Charles in the months before his death.
My mother was a devout Baptist and converted to SDA when I was about 7. I was baptized as Adventist when I was about 12 years old. So basically I grew up in the church - I went to an Adventist Academy in Texas and couple of years at the Adventist College at Keene. I took classes in old and New Testament history, plus D&R. I was exposed to doctrines of the Adventist church for many years. I learned the basics but never had a real conversion experience.
Being a product of church school I am a strong advocate of Christian Education. The values and trade I learned during my Adventist school days has been of great value. I am thankful for the opportunity that was given me. The value of the church school here at Laguna Niguel is worthy of everyone's support.
After leaving school I married and had three children - in 1959 I accepted a call to be the manager of La Sierra College Press. We regularly went to church and my children attended church school at La Sierra and later at Orangewood Academy. Life was good. I basically became a comfortable nominal Christian. There was never a "Come to God" event that took place in my life. I gradually drifted away...one thing at time until I quit going to church and stopped reading the bible. I stumbled at the actions of certain people instead of having my eye on Christ. It was easy to slip away. No one from the church contacted me which made me think that all they wanted was my money. A poor excuse on my part but one of the devices of the devil that is so easy to get caught up.
As time went on I prospered. I became self-sufficient. However I did maintain belief in God. I knew he was our creator. I felt God's protection many times. I knew he was coming again and that I would be judged someday. It bothered me but I did little about it until I got a wake up call this last April from a doctor saying I have 12 months to live if I don't go for treatment - it was colon cancer - stage IV - not good - it was starting to spread. When I came face to face with the possibility of death it woke me up. I started looking for some old books I had saved for many years. One I found was Steps to Christ. I read it all the way through. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I relearned that God loves me and that I could ask for forgiveness and that salvation was made possible through Christ's death on the cross. Once I took hold of that truth it became comforting. Never before did I grasp the meaning of the cross like I do now.
A small voice kept speaking to me. It became clear to me that I needed to start obeying the commandments including the 4th and to tithe. So I looked in the yellow pages and I found the address of the Laguna Niguel Adventist Church. The only Adventist church listed in that directory. About 4 or 5 weeks ago I attended church service here - it had been over 25 years since my last Sabbath service. I was blessed with the music and the sermon. I cried during most of the service. I was ashamed of being so emotional so left quickly after the service was over. I have since been back 4 times and have gotten a blessing each time. Some of the inspirational things I have found here at Laguna Niguel is the music - the organ, Pastor John's guitar, and the visual projection is excellent all which add a lot to the service.
There has been many things that have touched me recently...The first one was while I was waiting for a radiation treatment at Hoag Memorial Hospital waiting room. Older gentlemen sat down beside me. He said to me are you a Christian? I told him I try to be. He was a retired minister. He said something I will never forget - remember that "God Loves you more than you will ever know". Some how that struck home and made me weep for joy. One other thing that touched me was when a lady came to sit down in the pew behind me before the service started - she reached over shook hands and said Happy Sabbath. The sincerity of this comment has made a lasting impression on me.
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For many days after my wife and I learned I had cancer I told no one - not even my children. I held it in. One associate told me it was the curse of the Irish to hold things in - I laughed and said how true. I leveled with him. He was very supportive and encouraged me to let others know - that the support and prayers offered would be of great help. I agreed. I then composed an EMAIL and sent it to about 100 of my family, friends, employees, and business associates. I had no idea so many people cared and how many believed in prayer. Many of these have given me a chance to witness and express the power of prayer and to relate how God loves us all.
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