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.
American Dog Derby
The dog sledding tradition in Ashton owes its existence to Union Pacific Railroad. Ashton was founded and constructed with the coming of railroad in 1906. The construction of the Yellowstone Branch continued from Ashton into the high country of Island Park and completed at West Yellowstone in 1908. A few years later, the Teton Valley Branch, was constructed from Ashton into the Lamont and Teton Valley areas and completed to Victor in 1912. Due to the deep snows, however, these two railroads were closed down in winter and not plowed until spring. This made Ashton the wintertime rail terminus for the entire region. In winter, mail, people, and supplies could only be transported to developments in these high country areas via dog sled. By 1917, mushing, in Ashton, was a serious business with dozens carving out a living training and maintaining dog sled teams that transported mail, people, and supplies to the high country in winter.