Control Data Officer Starting Own Firm

Carl Ledbetter, former president and chief executive of the Control Data Corp. supercomputer subsidiary that was closed in April, has left Control Data to form another company.

Ledbetter, who headed ETA Systems in St. Paul, Minn., said he briefly explored the possibility of purchasing ETA’s assets from Control Data. But he and former ETA executive Al Moschner decided to start a new Twin Cities company, he said.

The new company will make special-purpose, high-performance computers, Ledbetter said, adding that its product line will not resemble a general-purpose supercomputer, which was the ETA product.

Ledbetter, who presided over Control Data’s effort to challenge Minneapolis-based Cray Research in the world supercomputer market, was removed from the helm of ETA last October in a restructuring that folded ETA into the parent company.

He was reinstated at ETA in February, when Control Data reversed its earlier plan. That prompted speculation that ETA was for sale or seeking an investor and that Ledbetter was a key ingredient in that strategy. ETA was closed after losses of more than $100 million last year.

While ETA fell victim to its own technological delays and to Control Data’s worsening financial problems, Ledbetter became well-known in the supercomputer industry and was credited with having fought an uphill battle to make ETA a competitor.