Bud Drutz

Keywords: Saranac Lake, Computer Sciences, Military, Space Surveillance, Saranac Lake Business,  
Interviewed 09/21/2019 by Kayt Gochenaur for the  Oral History Project

​Aaron “Bud” Drutz was born on sept 29 1932 in Saranac Lake to Solomon Drutz and Maxine Effenbach. His father and paternal grandmother ran Drutz Supermarket, while his maternal grandfather owned the Oxford Market. Maxine and Solomon moved to saranac lake when their parents were taking the cure. They stayed, were married, and raised a family here. Bud worked at the Drutz market, delivering groceries, grinding hamburger, and weighing out bags of potatoes. Bud remembers being in Pontiac Theater on December 7th 1941, Tony Anderson the mayor at the time stopped the movie and delivered the news about the bombing at Pearl Harbor.  During WWII, Bud’s uncle Joe Drutz flew B24s over Ploiești where a large Romanian oil field was. They were shut down by German forces, and he was wounded and sent to the POW camp in Stalag in Baltic. There the Red Cross was able to get word to his family, and Bud and his parents sent him many food packages from the market. Joe returned home safe. Bud graduated high school when he was 16 and enrolled at Paul smith’s college. He then transferred to University of Vermont where he graduated. He was drafted into the Army and got his MBA through the Army comptroller school in Syracuse.  There he met his wife Sondra. Bud was hired by the RAND corporation, a non profit which was the Air Force’s think tank. He received computer training and became a premier programer in the country. During the cold war the military was developing new technology. Bud built operating systems for computers tracking aircraft, satellite, marine ships, and defense communications. He worked in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs (an extensive underground bunker the military built to withstand a nuclear attack. Bud later worked on billing systems for health care in the state of Florida. After the RAND corp was sold, Bud worked for Computer Sciences Corporation, where he worked for 20 years. After retiring in 2010 he consulted for a while. Bud and Sondra came up to Saranac Lake for Bud’s 70th high school reunion, which he helped facilitate.

Interview audio may be edited  or redacted for  clarity and/or privacy.  Audio is  part of the Oral History Collection at Historic Saranac Lake.