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Banker who helped create nation's ATM network dies

February 23, 2006

TMCnet: As a young banking executive in the 1970s, Bruce Allen Burchfield envisioned a day when Americans would rely on remote banking stations across the country, easily getting cash just about anywhere. Burchfield eventually led the charge as ATMs became a global fixture. He founded the Cirrus System in 1982 and built it into a nationwide network with millions of cardholders.

"He was really the Bill Gates of ATMs," said Stephen Cole, a close friend who worked for years with Burchfield at First National Bank of Chicago. "There was a lot of resistance at the time, but he knew it was going to work."

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