Welcome to the 1999 CUG Conference!

We are excited to welcome everyone to Minneapolis for the 1999 CUG Conference. As the original home of Cray Research, it seems a fitting place to close out the millennium and look ahead to the next. We are indeed at the end of an era, as the supercomputing paradigm has shifted from the "big iron" to an HPC world of high-performance commodity processors.

The CUG Program Committee has planned an exciting week of technical sessions and discussions. Add to that good food, a grand night out in the elegant Minnesota History Center, an evening reception hosted by SGI, a special luncheon for CUG newcomers, and a chance to meet with your colleagues in the comfortable setting of the downtown Minneapolis Marriott City Center Hotel. We think it will be a rewarding and important event for the the CUG community.

The technical program promises to be excellent and we encourage you to peruse the program. In addition, we are excited to have as keynote speaker Dr. Cherri M. Pancake, Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State University.

Minnesota is called the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and we hope you take some extra time to enjoy the environment. Spring is a beautiful time of year here, and enthusiasm runs high as people begin to enjoy the outdoors after a long northern winter. From the bluffs of the mighty Mississippi River in the east, to the scenic shores of one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world (Lake Superior), to the farms and prairies of the west, Minnesota provides a diverse offering for visitors. Whether you like outdoor activities and sports, a quiet respite in the northern woods, or just some time to see the sights in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, we hope your stay will be memorable.

Minnesota is known for friendly but reserved people, who often are masters of understatement. To use the words of Garrison Keillor, well-known Minnesota humorist and host of national public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," we think this conference will be "not too bad," which, translated from understated Minnesota parlance, means it will be great!


John M. Sell
Network Computing Services, Inc.
Local Arrangements Chair