North Cook News

Randy John Suess was born on January 27, 1945, in Skokie, Illinois. He grew up in this suburb of Chicago, where his father, Miland, was a police officer, and his mother, Ruth, was a nurse. Suess joined the Navy after high school and later attended the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.

Suess made significant contributions to technology with his work on CBBS, the first bulletin board system. He co-founded CBBS with Ward Christensen. They started developing it during a Chicago blizzard and officially launched it on February 16, 1978. Suess built the hardware for CBBS and hosted it from his home in the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago. The system handled over half a million calls before its retirement in the 1980s.

Besides his work on CBBS, Suess was active as an amateur radio operator and a member of the Chicago FM Club. In 1992, he and Christensen received the Dvorak Telecommunications Excellence Award for their innovation. Their work was featured in the 2005 documentary BBS: The Documentary. Suess passed away on December 10, 2019, in Chicago. His early life in Skokie and his contributions to technology have left a lasting impact.