The Bank of New York Co.

Business: Financial services provider

On Nov. 20, 1985, The Bank of New York's security broker/dealer clearing system suffered an epic meltdown that sent shivers through the U.S. government securities market.

"The application's original design did not take into consideration that the volumes it would need to process on any given day could grow by 6,500 percent," says Woetzel, who had been hired just three weeks earlier to head a small IT team. The bank's inability to clear U.S. government securities created a record US$23 billion overdraft at the Federal Reserve discount window that evening, and the bank racked up millions in interest expenses.

Lessons learned: