A knight in computing armor

Philadelphia Legate Rocco Martino is a renaissance man who shows no signs of stopping . . .

Without even realizing it, most of us use technology or computing processes created by Dr. Rocco Martino each and every day.

A member of Legatus’ Philadelphia Chapter, the 85-year-old is also an international authority on finance and planning. Trained in astrophysics, he’s also an expert on computer systems. In fact, he worked on the world’s first computers and was instrumental in creating the technology behind the world’s first smart phone. On top of that, Martino is also an author and novelist.

The sky’s the limit

Rocco Martino

Growing up in Toronto in the 1930s, Martino dreamed big. “I built model airplanes with my brother, and I dreamed of walking on the moon,” said Martino. “I used to dream of space flight and how to do it.”

Martino’s dreams were fed by his excellent Catholic educators and role models. One of his favorite memories of growing up Catholic is the feast of Christ the King, which led Martino to dream of being a knight.

“In celebrating that feast we always had a boy chosen to portray a knight who would walk up the aisle of the Church,” he recalled. “So as a young boy, I had this image of knighthood.”

A lifelong Catholic, Martino studied mathematics and finance on scholarship at the University of Toronto, graduating summa cum laude in 1951. Still desiring to be a rocket scientist, he turned down opportunities with the Air Force and fellowships at Harvard and MIT to study astrophysics at the Institute of Aerospace Studies.

“The institute had contracts with the U.S. Air Force and Navy, so my doctoral work was sponsored by those agencies,” Martino explained.

His first job involved setting the specifications for what would become heat shields, adopted by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor to NASA. In order to perform the complex calculations, Martino used one of the first computers produced by Ferranti Electric.

“In one room was our office, in another room was the computer, and in another was the printer,” Martino explained. “I wore roller skates to go from one room to another, performing calculations. I lay claim to being the first person to run a remote control printer by running strips of punch paper tape 110-feet long and skating to make sure the paper didn’t jam.”

Ahead of his time

Martino credits the creator of the first computer — John Mauchly — with his marriage to Barbara.

“During dinner with John Mauchly, I met Barbara,” said Martino. “She was friends with his daughter. A year later, in 1961, we were married.” The couple has been blessed with four sons, 13 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Mauchly and Martino developed a partnership — Mauchly and Associates — and developed the Critical Path Method, an algorithm for scheduling complex projects. The planning technique was used in the creation of the submarine-based Polaris intercontinental ballistic missile and is still used in the research and design of large construction projects.

Throughout the 1960s, Martino headed up computer operations for other companies before launching his own in 1965 — RL Martino Company, which later became XRT, a company that created processes and systems to handle secure financial treasury management. When Martino sold the company in 1997, it had 11,000 clients in 51 countries and was processing more than $3 trillion per day through systems he and his staff designed.

In the 1990s, Martino started building the first smart phone, known as the CyberFone. It’s among roughly 60 patents that he holds.

Martino was at least 10 years ahead of his time. While he didn’t have the money necessary to get businesses interested, the CyberFone patent portfolio has generated more than $18 million in licensing fees over the past three years.

“Dr. Martino is as much a renaissance man as any scientist the modern age has produced,” Doug Croxall, CEO of the Marathon Patent Group, told InventorsDigest.com. The publication said that Martino’s innovations “have impacted the people of the United States and elsewhere, improving their quality of life and connection with others.”

Working for the Church

The Martinos shake hands with
Pope Francis.

Through his personal and professional life, Martino’s faith has remained his driving force, even in the face of challenges.

“In terms of faith, I went through some pretty tough studies,” Martino said. “You can’t study the origins of the universe and what holds it all together and say that it all came from chance. That’s ridiculous. No real thinking scientist can claim that the universe came out of nothing. I propose that if you have an infinite source of energy, you can create an infinite source of mass. The infinite source of energy is God, and that source of energy created the mass that became the universe.”

Of all his accomplishments — working on the heat shield, international finance, and the technology behind the world’s first smart phone — Martino says his greatest accomplishments are found in his faith-based work.

Martino led the efforts to restore the country’s first Catholic cathedral — Baltimore’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The archdiocese completed a 32-month, $34 million restoration project in 2006.

He’s also proud of his work on the board of the Magnificat Foundation, creating days of spiritual enlightenment that have been held in major cities across the country.

“We had 3,300 people in a candlelight procession through the streets of Philadelphia,” Martino said. “Public demonstrations and the witness to our faith are important.”

As the author of more than 21 works of non-fiction and three novels, Martino says his novel The Resurrection: A Criminal Investigation, published in 2013, is his greatest accomplishment. Martino first became interested in the idea of novel writing after attending the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany.

“It had a tremendous impact on me,” said Martino. “I still remember Mother Mary screaming, ‘My son, my son, my son.’ The play drove home that these were three-dimensional people with normal feelings of anguish and joy and pain. You don’t get that when you just hear the scriptures.”

Martino found novel writing as a way to bring the Scriptures to life.

“There are two great miracles related to Christianity,” Martino said. “The first is the resurrection; without it there is no Christianity. The second miracle is the way in which Christianity swept through the Roman Empire. My novel is a means of telling that story.”

The novel has garnered positive reviews. Thomas P. Sheahan wrote: “Martino has created a totally different view from the way the Gospel narrative is ordinarily presented. This book … can serve as a springboard for a discussion of the historical circumstances surrounding the world where Jesus walked.”

Now Martino is working on a follow-up novel.

“What you do to earn a living is not necessarily the most important thing you do,” said Martino. “I feel I’ve accomplished something if I awaken in people an interest in faith.”

Many of Martino’s dreams have come true, including that longing for knighthood he had as a boy. Martino has been initiated as a Knight in the Order of St. Gregory, the Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the Order of Malta, the Constantinian Order of St. George, and the Order of St. Maurice and Lazarus.

“When I was initiated as a knight in the Order of Malta and the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, I kept thinking back to the way we celebrated the feast of Christ the King.”

Dr. Rocco Martino has become a knight after all.

TIM DRAKE is Legatus magazine’s editorial assistant.