| William (Bill) Redington Hewlett | |
|---|---|
Hewlett (left) and Alan Tripp in a 1993 photograph at Tripp's first SCORE! Center |
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| Born | May 20, 1913 Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| Died | January 12, 2001 (aged 87) Palo Alto, California |
| Known for | Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) |
William (Bill) Redington Hewlett (May 20, 1913 – January 12, 2001) was an engineer and the co-founder, with David Packard, of the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan where his father taught at the University of Michigan Medical School. In 1916 the family moved to San Francisco after his father took a similar position at Stanford Medical School located at the time in San Francisio. He attended Lowell High School and was accepted at Stanford University as a favor to his late father, Albion Walter Hewlett, a former faculty member who had died of a brain tumor in 1925.[1]
Hewlett received his Bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1934, an MS degree in electrical engineering from MIT in 1936, and the degree of Electrical Engineer from Stanford in 1939. He joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity during his time at Stanford. In 1999, the William R. Hewlett Teaching Center at Stanford was named in his honor. The building is located in the Science and Engineering Quad, adjacent to the David Packard Electrical Engineering Building. [2]
Hewlett attended classes taught by Fred Terman at Stanford and became acquainted with David Packard during his undergraduate work at Stanford. He and Packard began discussing forming a company in August 1937, and founded Hewlett-Packard Company as a partnership on January 1, 1939. A flip of a coin decided the ordering of their names.[3] The company incorporated in 1947 and tendered an initial public offering in 1957.[1] Hewlett was president of the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1954.[4] Also in 1939 he married Flora Lamson, and the couple eventually had five children: Eleanor, Walter, James, William and Mary. There are 12 grandchildren.
He was President of HP from 1964 to 1977, and served as CEO from 1968 to 1978, when he was succeeded by John A. Young. He remained chairman of the executive committee until 1983, and then served as vice chairman of the board until 1987.
A young Steve Jobs, then in grade eight, had called up Hewlett requesting a part for a frequency counter that he was building. Hewlett was impressed with Jobs' gumption and offered him a summer job. Since then, Jobs has considered HP one of the companies that he admired, regarding it among the handful of companies (Disney and Intel were the others) that were built “to last, not just to make money”. [5]
In 1966, Hewlett and his wife founded the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Flora Hewlett died in 1977. In 1978, Hewlett married Rosemary Bradford.
He died of heart failure in Palo Alto, California, on January 12, 2001, and was interred at Los Gatos Memorial Park, San Jose, California.
| Business positions | ||
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| Preceded by David Packard |
President of Hewlett-Packard 1964–1977 |
Succeeded by John A. Young |
| Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard 1971–1978 |
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