Top Execs Visit a World That’s Alien to Them : Technology: Orange County crash course is designed to teach them to use personal computers.

It may come as no surprise that many chief executives of major corporations are computer illiterate. The higher up they are, the more embarrassing it can be to come out of the closet and seek help.

So it was with gritted teeth that 31 CEOs came to a $5,500-per-person retreat in Orange County this week to admit their techno-phobia and learn to use gadgets ranging from personal computers to voice mail.

“I’m borderline computer illiterate,” said Russell E. Christiansen, chief executive of Midwest Resources Inc., an electric and gas utility in Des Moines, Iowa. “I thought I better get on with it. I can’t be the last one in our organization to learn how to use a computer.”

Like Christiansen, one of every three executives attending the seminar said they don’t use computers at work or home, said Robert Burns, chief executive of the CEO Institutes, a training company that sponsors the seminars along with software publisher Computer Associates International Inc.

The seminar at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel was the third in a series of retreats the company has staged for chief executives from around the world. It is part of a crusade against the dangers of the “technology disconnect” between business people and the technology experts they increasingly depend on.

“We’re trying to show that it isn’t so complicated,” said Charles Wang, chief executive of Computer Associates in Islandia, N.Y. “We’re trying to take the intimidation out. We’re also saying that if you want to use technology as a competitive advantage, you have to take the technology up into executive management.”

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Daniel R. Nelson, chief executive of West One Bancorp, a regional bank based in Boise, Idaho, with $7.4 billion in assets, said he came to the seminar because he spends $2 million a year buying computer equipment he cannot fathom.

“It’s one of our largest expenditures and it has come to control our lives,” he said. “I’m always terrified we’re going down a blind alley. I’ve got to learn it or I’m going to get run over by it.”

At the seminar, every chief executive is assigned a personal adviser in case he or she gets lost in the computer world. One by one, they joke with their fellow executives about how they had talked themselves into thinking you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Donald S. Freeman, president of Dallas-based Freeman Cos., a $250-million company with 1,500 employees that organizes trade shows, said he balked at manuals for computers that were thicker than the instruction books for the corporate planes he pilots. What’s the use, he always reasoned. He could ride out his ignorance until he retired.

Others go to great lengths to hide their lack of knowledge. Carlos Tan, chief executive of Bumble Bee Seafoods Inc. in San Diego, said he gets his secretary to print out his electronic mail.

But he never asks her any questions.

“I’m completely illiterate,” he said. “For me, this is practical because we’re about to invest some money in a new computer system.”