Known for his early work with relay computers and as a co-founder of the Association for Computing Machinery, Andrews was a pioneer in the development of binary computers. Ernest Galen Andrews was born in Topeka, Kansas, on January 10, 1898. Following service aboard the USS Kansas during World War I, Andrews attended William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, where he received a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1922.
In that same year, he accepted a position with the installation department of the Western Electric Company in Kansas City, whence he was transferred to Atlanta and then to New York City. In 1925 Andrews joined Bell Telephone Laboratories upon its formation out of the engineering department of Western Electric. There he worked for many years on installation and maintenance requirements in the switching-development organization.
Andrews's principal contributions to early computer technology included his work in the design and construction of the relay computers at Bell Telephone Laboratories and his efforts on behalf of the Association for Computing Machinery, of which he was a founding member.
