Having failed at retirement, John Landis figured he might aswell engage again in what he calls the “intellectual challenge” ofcreating, selling and supporting a new core processing system forcredit unions.

Ed Perry, meanwhile, had worked with many of the hundreds ofcredit unions running the software Landis had originated, so whynot join in?

Landis developed the Galaxy system in the late 1970s (it laterwent to Fiserv Inc.) and then the Symitar platform in the mid-1980sbefore he and his partners sold that company to Jack Henry &Associates in 2000.

Not being into golf or other stereotypical retirement pursuits,he said, Landis has spent the past several years developing what’snow the KeyStone core processing system and Corelation Inc., theSan Diego company that surrounds it.

See Update: Corelation Lands Fifth, By Far Largest, New Client

Landis is the new company’s chairman. Its president, TheresaBenavidez, is an original Symitar employee who went on to a longcareer as a senior executive for Fiserv before retiringherself and then joining Landis.

Carl Barlow, a 20-year software architect at Symitar, has comeaboard as Corelation’s director of systems architecture, and nowcomes Perry, who stayed retired all of about two months beforejoining Landis and team this fall as business developmentexecutive.

Perry said he first sold a Landis-designed core processingsystem in 1981 to a Texas credit union he said is still using it.He retired in July and joined Corelation in September, saying he’d rather face today’sadventures in business air travel than the honey-do list oflong-made promises at home.

“Well, it’s kind of like with John,” Perry said. “My wife wasn’treal comfortable with me sitting around the house all the time, andwhen Theresa invited me to join them, well, you only get a couplechances in life, opportunities like this, so I figured this was agreat one for me.”

While hitting the road and the runways again selling the newsystem “is fun and exciting, and a whole new, clean slate for me,”Perry said, he and Landis agreed that things have changed somesince 1985.

Landis points to the technology. “I last built a new platform ona 16-bit machine with 256k of memory and 20-meg hard drive,” hesaid. “Now CPU speeds are 12,000 times what they were then, memoryis about 32 times as great and disk space about 30 times.”

Green screens are nearly extinct and so are many of thelimitations of what a core processing system can do. “In fact, wedidn’t even call them core processing systems then,” Landis said.“They were just the system.”

Perry, meanwhile, points to the people. “It used to be that thefirst person out of the room when we did a sales presentation wasthe manager, the CEO,” he said. “Not anymore. A lot of those folkshave retired, and now everybody has iPads and iPhones, and they sitin on the meetings and can talk processes and technology andlanguages and networks.”

He also doesn’t expect meals on flights anymore–“I just bag myown lunch”–and still enjoys the travel and going to trade shows andseeing people in the industry he’s known for years.

“I’m a good bit older than John [who’s 56] and a lot of thefolks I see at the credit unions, and it’s been a lot of fun seeingpeople I knew as loan officers and the like coming up through theranks,” said Perry, who’s 70.

Landis, meanwhile, said, “I used to feel a little nervous backin the old days when I was so much younger than the CEOs and CIOs,who were mostly called managers and computer operators then, butnow I’m right there in the wheelhouse with them.”

He added with a chuckle, “And maybe I’m old enough now that theyreally can trust their data processing to me.”

The software they’re selling–and competing with–has also come along way, with 360-degree member views, electronic banking and openarchitecture to accommodate other third-party software and servicesthat weren’t even on drawing boards when Landis and Perry first metup.

And the business itself has more time to mature. “We haven’t hadto take short cuts. And it’s not like before, where there times wehad to maybe bite off more than we could comfortably chew becausewe had to,” Landis said.

The first KeyStone customer–the $93 million Harbor FCU inCarson, Calif.–has gone live on the platform, three more have signed on and othersare listening, Landis said. Several of those first clients havelong relationships with the software and people behind Corelationand KeyStone, but with Perry aboard and on the road, Landis said,the company expects to expand.

Landis also said he’s confident in KeyStone and Corelation andin the credit union industry.

“With all the consolidation, it’s a much more competitiveenvironment than it used to be,” he said. “But you have to hopethat’s a good thing, and that credit unions will bring in moremembers in the long run. I really do think they have to remembertheir roots and stick together in order to succeed down theroad.”

As evidence of his confidence, Landis points to his son, aformer schoolteacher who’s now director of education forCorelation, training clients on the use of their sophisticated newsystem.

“I would never have brought Rob into the business if I thoughtit was a short-term career for him,” Landis said. “I really seethis, and hope he sees it that way, too. That it’s an industry hecan stay in for the long haul and make his mark on it.”