King's inspiration leads man to minority award

One year after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas A. Farrington decided to quit his well paying high-technology position with a national corporation and form his own business, Input Output Computer Services, Inc. (IOCS), in Waltham, Mass. Wednesday his enterprise paid off when IOCS was honored by the White House. The Minority Business Development Agency of the Department of Commerce awarded IOCS its highest honor, the National Minority Service Industry Firm of the Year. This award highlights National Minority Enterprise Development Week (Oct. 6-11) proclaimed by President Reagan.

``My employees and IOCS managers have earned this award with their work through our 17 years of operation,'' said Mr. Farrington, president of IOCS.

During the past decade IOCS has developed a unique coupling of voice response technology with existing computer systems, Farrington said. This has resulted in the firm's own registered Voice-Net system, which has spelled growth for Input Output. The company reported $23 million in sales for 1985.

``This has been a year of reassessing our goals and of planning for our graduation from federal government set-asides . . .'' Farrington said. To lessen its dependency on government, IOCS has launched a campaign for expansion nationally and in Africa, where it operates a subsidiary, with heaquarters in Cameroon. Its major African project is the development of a national computer technology plan for Cameroon.