VENTURA : Professor to Speak at Saudi Conference

A Ventura College mathematics professor plans to fly to Saudi Arabia on Friday to address an international computer conference that is being held despite the tensions along the country’s eastern border.

“I’m betting on things stabilizing, but everything depends on what happens in the next week,” said Ben Matley, 60, who founded the college’s data processing department in 1969. “If hostilities break out, I certainly won’t be going.”

Matley, an expert on the computer’s role in economic growth, was asked in June to present a 45-minute keynote address at the 12th Saudi National Computer Conference in Riyadh, which begins Sunday.

Mohammad Mandurah, an administrator at King Saud University in Riyadh, wrote in his invitation that Matley’s 1988 book, “National Computer Policy,” has generated considerable discussion among Saudi academicians. He asked Matley to discuss government computer policies in developing nations in his speech, which will be delivered to an audience of predominantly European and Middle Eastern experts.

Trustees of the Ventura County Community College District approved Matley’s request for time off for the trip, on the condition that he not go if the State Department later recommended against travel to the area.

The State Department has recommended that Americans avoid Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, where military forces are massed to defend against a possible Iraqi invasion. The department has made no recommendation on civilian travel to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

Matley, whose air fare and hotel bills are being paid by the Saudis, said he received a facsimile transmission from Mandurah on Saturday night confirming that the conference is still scheduled.

“As far as safety goes, I’ll have 200,000 troops and aircraft carriers to back me up,” said Matley, who served in the U.S. Navy from 1949 to 1955. “When you think about it, there were 12 people murdered in L.A. on a recent weekend when there was no one killed in Riyadh. So where would I really be safer?”