John Bordyniuk — NASA’s ‘Go To’ Data Recovery Guy

admin | September 6, 2010

In the past, research institutions and government agencies stored data on tapes and hard drives — often without backing up the information. Today, when employees discover damage to these tapes and hard drives, they don’t assume that the data are lost forever — they simply call data-recovery expert John Bordynuik.

Take the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From the ’60s to the ’90s, MIT recorded its intellectual property onto seven- and nine-track reel-to-reel tapes. When MIT realized that they could no longer read any of these tapes — and that the data on the tapes couldn’t be found anywhere else — they tried to recover the data. They failed. It wasn’t until 2004, when MIT contacted Bordynuik, that the institution was able to recover the priceless data it had stored on 30,000 pounds of tapes.

Bordynuik — who has an IQ higher than Einstein’s — developed his own ovens to bake the tapes, ridding them of any stickiness. After that, he could read them without mangling them and transfer their contents to modern media. In addition to recovering data for MIT, Bordynuik has read tapes for Harvard University, the United Nations and the United States Army.

NASA contracted Bordynuik to recover “unreadable” earth science sensor data that had been recorded on reel-to-reel tapes from 1960 to 2000. NASA was so pleased with Bordynuik’s work that, in 2008, NASA sole-sourced his company, JBI Inc., which trades on the OTC under the stock symbol JBII. That means that NASA will award all of its future data-recovery work to JBI.

Bordynuik’s interested in other industries as well. His company is moving forward to commence operations on a process, Plastic2Oil, that converts waste plastic into a fuel similar to diesel. Pak-It, a JBI subsidiary, also produced a line of environmentally friendly home cleaning products that come in dissolvable packets. If Bordynuik’s work in data-recovery is any indication, we can trust in the success of his other projects.

JBI is currently applying for AMEX (American Stock Exchange). For additional information, visit http://www.plastic2oil.com, http://www.jbiglobal.com or http://www.johnbordynuik.com.

- Courtesy NUSA