Ashton-Tate
In June 1982 Cole hired Rod Turner as the director of OEM sales for Ashton-Tate. In a few weeks Turner solved a sales commission plan issue, that had been bothering George Tate for some time, with the top performing salesperson (Barbara Weingarten, now Guerra), and Tate and Cole promoted Turner to be Vice President of world-wide sales three weeks after his initial hire. Turner was approximately the 12th employee of Ashton Tate. Since the company was truly boot-strapped, using no external venture capital, the founders did not make a practice of hiring experienced veterans, and most of the team at Ashton-Tate were young and enthusiastic, but inexperienced. Jim Taylor was responsible for product management in the early days, and worked closely with Wayne Ratliff and the other key developers on dBASE II. In 1982 Perry Lawrence and Nelson Tso were the two developers who were employed at Ashton-Tate, while Wayne Ratliff employed Jeb Long from his royalty stream.
John Ashton (music publisher)
John Ashton was a merchant and music publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. He owned a "music & umbrella store" at no.197 Washington Street which sold "all the new and fashionable music" ca.1819-1844. He manufactured and sold musical instruments; tuned pianos; and published and sold sheet music "of marches, waltzes, rondos, variations, quadrilles, gallopades, dances, &c. ... arranged for the band, orchestra, piano forte, guitar, flute, violin, organ &c." Among the composers represented in Ashton's stock: Comer, Joseph Haydn, Knight, Paddon, Russell, Shaw, Webb, Charles Zeuner. The firm "John Ashton & Co." was dissolved on January 1, 1844.Ashton published numerous sheet music titles. For example: