A major contributor in the creation of IBM's FORTRAN, the first high-level scientific and engineering programming language, Nutt was also an American businessman and computer pioneer who co-founded Computer Sciences Corporation. He was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and grew up in Glastonbury, Connecticut. He graduated in 1953 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Trinity College in Hartford. A pioneer in the fledgling software industry of the 1950s, he was a major contributor in the creation of IBM's FORTRAN, the first high-level scientific and engineering programming language.
Part of the FORTRAN project's team, Nutt was responsible for developing the computer command FORMAT, which controls data for input and output. He also created an assembler for the IBM 704 mainframe that is today seen as the most successful individual programming effort of the 1950s. During this period, he met Fletcher Jones when he joined with nineteen others from the aerospace industry to form an IBM user group known as SHARE, which developed its own operating system known as SOS. Jones, as Secretary of the group, became its national spokesman, and their working relationship would later result in a business partnership.
Nutt had become a widely respected computer programmer for United Aircraft Corp. in East Hartford, Connecticut when he left in 1959 to team up with Fletcher Jones to establish Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) in Los Angeles. He was responsible for building Honeywell the first commercial compiler and oversaw the company's major 1961 entry into the space industry when they obtained a contract to support the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Flight Operations Facility. Jones, who ran the business and marketing end of things, obtained this contract from Honeywell, which gave their business profitability and respect within the industry.
Within four years of its founding, CSC became the largest software company in the United States, taking their business public with an IPO listed on the American Stock Exchange. By the end of the 1960s, CSC was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and had operations in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
In later years, Nutt used some of his wealth to benefit Trinity College. He set up an endowment fund for a professorship and donated money to assist in the construction of the college's engineering and computing building. He died of lung cancer in Seattle, Washington on June 14, 1990.
