Bernard C. Dusé was born on April 13, 1941 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was the second of seven children born to Bernard Clark Dusé, Sr. and Cudellus Julia (Henderson) Dusé. Both parents worked very hard outside the home to support the family. Bernard’s family attended church regularly. They lived in the Hill District part of Pittsburgh until 1955, after which they moved to the Homewood district. Bernard’s father passed away in 1953 and his mother in 1976.
Bernard attended A. Leo Weil Elementary School and Herron Hill Junior High School in the Hill District and Westinghouse High School in Homewood. He was a consistent leader and scholar during his grade school years. During his high school years he delivered newspapers and worked at a drive-in restaurant to earn spending money. Bernard graduated from Westinghouse in 1959 with High Honors and was awarded a partial scholarship to attend the Engineering School at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt). At Pitt, Bernard was a leader in the Engineering School, a member and leader in the Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC), a member of the Omega Psi Phi social fraternity (Omicron Psi chapter), and a member of the Pershing Rifles military fraternity. He received the Chancellor’s Medal for Leadership. He also worked part-time at the Mellon Institute, a research facility on the Pitt campus. Bernard finished Pitt in four years with a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and a U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant commission.
After graduating from Pitt, Bernard was then recruited by the Procter & Gamble Co. to be a part of their Data Processing Department in Cincinnati, Ohio starting in August 1963. He was one of the first African Americans to join the PCG professional-level staff. In January 1964, Bernard began his two year active duty commitment with the U.S. Army. After initial training, he was assigned as a platoon leader with the First Infantry Division (The Big Red One) at Fort Riley, KS. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in July 1965 and served his last six months of active duty with the 2nd Brigade of the division in South Vietnam. Bernard received the First Infantry Division and Vietnam Combat Service Medals. Years later, the Veterans Administration determined that Bernard had received Agent Orange poisoning from his South Vietnam service. This has resulted in accelerated cardiovascular heart disease and prostate cancer.
After returning from Vietnam, Bernard re-joined Procter & Gamble Co. and was immediately promoted to Assistant Manager of the West Coast Regional Data Center in Los Angeles. The Data Center serviced the Procter & Gamble Long Beach, CA manufacturing plant, and it managed two smaller data centers in Sacramento, CA and Dallas, TX. While living in Los Angeles, Bernard was a leader of the graduate chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and a volunteer leader in the South Central YMCA. He also completed several graduate courses at the UCLA School of Business.
In 1968, Bernard was accepted to attend the Harvard University Business School Master of Business Administration Program in Boston, MA. While studying for his Master of Business Administration (MBA), he assisted in student recruitment and was elected vice-chairman of the Board of Publications, which awarded the editorship of the school’s weekly newspaper and the ownership of the student-run businesses. Bernard graduated from Harvard in June 1970 with an MBA degree. He was then successfully recruited by the IBM Corporation in June 1970. That same year, Bernard’s youngest brother passed away, so Bernard took on fatherhood responsibilities his late brother’s daughter.
At IBM, Bernard’s initial position was Computer Salesman. During training for the position, he was elected by his peers as a vice-president of the final sales school training class. He went on to become a 100% Club member of the IBM sales force by exceeding his sales quotas at the IBM Bridgeport, CT sales office where he was the lead IBM salesman for the American Chain & Cable Corp. In 1972, Bernard entered the competition to become a White House Fellow. He became a semi-finalist. One of the two African Americans who became White House Fellows that year was a young U.S. Army Officer named Colin Powell. Also, in 1978, Bernard was selected as one of the two IBM Outstanding Minority Employees. Bernard went on to higher-level staff and management positions at IBM: Business Plans Staff, the Research Division where he was Manager of Technology Transfer, the IBM Information Network where he was Manager of the Data Based Products, and the Strategic Programs Planning Group where he was the initial Development Manager of Business Oriented Videotex Products and Services.
During his time with IBM, Bernard lived or worked in Bridgeport, CT; Milford CT; Harrison, NY; Weston, CT; Stamford, CT; and New Canaan, CT. He hit a very clear promotion ceiling and left working for IBM in November 1984. By then, Bernard was a director in the Software Products Sales Division A. He spent the next eight years in legal litigation against IBM and its agents in the slow-moving U.S. Federal Court 2nd Circuit. Bernard’s successful suit against IBM is described in Dusé v. IBM 748 F. Supp. 956 Feb. 5, 1990. In that suit, the U.S. District Court found a discriminatory failure to promote, retaliatory discharge, and it denied defendant John Opel’s (then IBM Chief Executive Officer) Motion for Summary Judgement. That suit finally led to financial settlements rather than court trials in 1991 and 1992 with IBM and its agents.
During the IBM litigation years, Bernard earned a small income as a business consultant under the name Dusé Associates. In 1994, Bernard moved from New Canaan, CT to Reston, Virginia and continued his consulting activities and then worked to establish his own information services corporation as a Delaware Register Corporation called Network Services of America, Inc., which he started in 1996. Unfortunately, the venture failed, largely due to funding struggles. In 1999, Bernard finally married his wife, Nancy, whom he had met in Hong Kong while on a consulting assignment. She is originally from the Philippines and has become the missing love of his life. They established a second home in Cebu, Philippines which they would visit each year.
Following the failure of Network Services of America, Inc. and the major loss of consulting opportunities after September 11th, Bernard had to give up his home in Reston, Virginia at the end of 2001. He and his wife moved in with their niece/daughter Dr. Lory Dance in Alexandria. Lory is the daughter of Bernard’s next youngest brother, Phillip. As Phillip became increasingly estranged, Bernard became Lory’s father figure in the 1980s. Bernard’s advice was a key factor to Lory applying to Harvard, where she eventually received her doctorate in sociology.
In the years after, Bernard had trouble finding work that suited his education and experience level. The shadow of his lawsuit with IBM loomed large, and most potential employers closed their doors to him. Bernard worked at Barnes & Noble for several years before taking a position as an Assistant Manager with CVS.