Legend in Title Technology Passes Away
November 10, 2015
Edward Wyatt Bell, founder and president of Landtech Data Corp., recently passed away.
Edward started working in the title industry at a young age completing settlement statements after hours for his father, William Wyatt Bell, who was a real estate attorney in Michigan. After attending Michigan State in the early 1970s, Edward eventually went on to found two title companies before starting Landtech.
“His vision and dedication to improving the closing process has been realized by thousands of agents all across the United States,” said Benjamin Bell, director of sales and marketing for Landtech. “With the dawn of the computer age, Edward envisioned creating a software package geared towards the Title Insurance and Closing Industry.
Landtech’s system launched on the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I computer. According to Benjamin Bell, this first system had no lower-case characters or color. It had only 32K of memory with two floppy drives. Much of the internal system and the programming were written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. This was seven years before Microsoft would go public and more than two years prior to the introduction of the IBM PC, which would revolutionize the workplace.
Benjamin Bell said Edward Wyatt Bell programmed the first closing software package on the market, the Landtech Real Estate Settlement System. He eventually sold a system in 1979 for $395. It’s been said that he chose this price, because he could pay it back if it didn’t work. After 36 year in business, Landtech is now utilized by closing agents on over 10,000 desktops.
Edward Wyatt Bell was also an avid pilot during his free time. He was one of only 200 pilots in the world to have an Airline Transport Pilot License for helicopter and fixed wing.
Memorial for my Edward Wyatt Bell will be held at 6 p.m. ET, Saturday, November 14 at Palms West Funeral Home, 110 Business Park Way, Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411.
Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or [email protected].