Donald Prell

Donald B. Prell (July 7, 1924 – July 28, 2020) was an American World War II veteran, venture capitalist and futurist who created Datamation, the first magazine devoted solely to the computer hardware and software industry.

Over the course of his career Prell pursued long-standing interests in both Edward John Trelawny, a novelist and friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, and Pierre Laval, Prime Minister of France in the 1930s and again during the Vichy era.

Both interests arose while living in England in the late 1940s; he discovered Trelawny's relationship to the romantic poets on a holiday to Cornwall, and he befriended René de Chambrun, Laval's son-in-law, in London.

In the course of Prell's research, he authored four journal articles and six books and developed extensive collections of material by and about Trelawny and Laval.

These research materials have been donated to two Southern California libraries:

Prell was born in Los Angeles, California, and graduated from Los Angeles High School in the summer of 1942.

In his freshman year at UCLA, he enlisted in the US Army.

In 1944, aged 19, he graduated from Officer Candidate School, Ft. Benning, Georgia, and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant, Infantry.

Serving in the European Theater of Operations in command of the second platoon of the Anti-Tank Company, 422nd Regiment, 106th Division, during the Battle of the Bulge, December 16–19, 1944, he was wounded and captured.

Captured at the same time as Prell was Richard Bordeaux Parker, who commanded the first platoon of the Anti-Tank Company.

On March 27, 1945, he was briefly freed by Task Force Baum, a clandestine U.S. Army mission to liberate Oflag XIII-B authorized by General George S. Patton, then commanding the Third Army.

The raid was a fiasco, with many POW casualties, including Patton's son-in-law, Lt. Colonel John K. Waters, who was seriously wounded.

(Patton reported the raid as the only mistake he made during World War II and General Dwight D. Eisenhower reprimanded him for it.) Prell's freedom lasted only a few days as he was recaptured after attempting to locate friendly forces.

A month later, he escaped from a POW camp south of Nuremberg, and found his way to freedom.

After the war, he resumed undergraduate studies at UCLA and graduated in 1948.

While at UCLA, he was an active member of the American Veterans Committee, which was committed to integrating the U.S. military.

Prell was involved with successfully ending racial discrimination of patrons at Oakley's Barbershop in Westwood.

Prell was a Ph.D. candidate in Psychology with Hans Eysenck's Program Research Team at the University of London from 1948-1951.

It was here that he learned to use Hollerith punched card tabulation machines, the forerunner of today's digital computers.

Whilst studying for his graduate degree at the University of London (1948–1950) he was employed as a Psychologist at the West Park Hospital, Epsom, Surrey.

During the 1950s, Prell worked with Rand Corporation futurist Herman Kahn, who later founded the Hudson Institute in New York.

In this period he was associated with many of the early designers of high-speed computer input-output devices, analog to digital converters, and digital display plotters, including working with Bernard Benson of the Benson-Lehner Corporation.

Donald Prell had been a longtime friend of Minardos from their bachelor days in Los Angeles in the 1950s and he and his wife, Bette, had named Minardos as a godfather to their children.

In 1957, working with Thomson Publications, he created Datamation, the first magazine dedicated solely to the emerging computer-data-processing industry.

In 1960, Prell married Elizabeth (Bette) Howe, a British novelist and magazine editor.

They had two children: Owen Prell and Erin Semper (née Prell).

In 1961, he was president, and the major shareholder, of Electro-Radiation, Inc, a Santa Monica, California firm specializing in molecular electronics and electroluminescence.

Later, he founded and served as President of two venture capital firms: in 1967, Union Ventures (a subsidiary of the Union Bank N.A.) and, in 1980, Imperial Ventures (a subsidiary of Imperial Bank of California).

During his association with Union Bank, whose CEO at the time was the banking innovator, Harry Volk, Prell was responsible for producing the bank's first and only 30-year Strategic Plan.

Prell received the UCLA University Service Award in 1977.

In the 1980s, Prell founded, and was the first chairman of, the UCLA College of Letters and Science Dean's Council.

Prell also served as a longtime member of the Chancellor's Associates during the tenure of Chancellor Charles E. Young, along with such friends and colleagues as Rafer Johnson, Larry Irell and J.D. Morgan.

He was a trustee of the UCLA Foundation and was also a president of the Order of the Blue Shield, an alumni group dedicated to furthering the interest and welfare of UCLA.

The UCLA College of Letters and Science annually awards three scholarships on the basis of academic merit to UCLA undergraduate students in the name of Donald Prell and his wife, Bette Prell.

He and his wife lived in Palm Springs, California from 1996.

Prell appeared in a 2010 documentary about the life of Nico Minardos, a Greek-American actor, titled Finding Nico, which was produced and directed by Owen Prell.

Donald Prell died on July 28, 2020, at the age of 96, and was interred at the Los Angeles National Cemetery with full military honors.

Prell was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Army's Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame in 2021 for "valorous combat leadership and lifelong service to the nation."

In December 2022, the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles disclosed that the Legion of Honour medal was authorized for Prell in 2019 for his service to the French Republic during World War II but the award was delayed due to COVID-19.

Prell died before the award's presentation could be conducted at an in-person ceremony.