PARC founder George Pake dies

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 12:58:26 -0800
From: Ari Ollikainen <Ari () OLTECO com>
Subject: PARC founder George Pake dies
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>


PARC founder George Pake dies
By Ina Fried
CNET News.com
March 10, 2004, 12:01 PM PT
URL: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-5172123.html

George Pake, the scientist who founded Xerox's fabled Palo Alto
Research Center, died last week, less than a month shy of his 80th
birthday.

Pake led the research lab from its inception in 1970 until 1978, then
moved on to oversee Xerox's corporate research from 1978 until 1986.
PARC helped pioneer research into many key technologies, including
laser printing, Ethernet, graphical user interfaces and client-server
computing.

"George was really the person who brought industrial research and
innovation on a large scale to Silicon Valley by establishing PARC
out here," said Kris Halvorsen, who worked at Xerox PARC in the early
1980s and is now a vice president and researcher at HP Labs.

Bob Spinrad, who was Xerox's head of West Coast engineering when PARC
was started, said that it ended up being a good time to set up shop
in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tough economic times forced the
closure of Berkeley Computer and left a number of very talented
engineers available for the company to hire--luminaries like Chuck
Thacker and Butler Lampson.

Pake was the right man for the job to oversee the effort, Spinrad said.

"He knew what you had to do was get the very best people and let them
go follow their ideas," said Spinrad, who succeeded Pake as director
at PARC in 1978.

Halvorsen said Pake had a quiet but persuasive way that helped set
the tone for PARC and paved the way for its culture of inventiveness.

"I think everyone who worked for George, both directly and
indirectly, revered him," Halvorsen said.

While PARC has become closely associated with Silicon Valley, Xerox
considered other places for the laboratories before deciding on Palo
Alto. The company also looked at spots near Yale University and
Princeton University as well as a location in Los Angeles, Spinrad
said. A different choice might have changed the history of Silicon
Valley.

"I think things might have been very different," Halvorsen said.

In addition to his efforts at Xerox, Pake was known for the work he
did while earning his doctorate at Harvard University in the 1980s.
His doctoral thesis was on a phenomenon involving the interaction of
two closely spaced nuclear magnets--a theory that later became known
as "Pake doublets." That work in magnetics helped later researchers
to develop magnetic resonance imaging--a widespread technique for
medical diagnosis. Prior to joining Xerox, Pake served as Provost of
Washington University in St. Louis, Miss.

After his retirement from Xerox in 1986, Pake started the Institute
for Research on Learning, a group that explored leaning as a
fundamentally social activity. Pake worked on projects that looked at
ways of teaching math and science in a hands-on way.

Pake was awarded the National Medal of Science by former president
Ronald Reagan in 1987. Born in Jeffersonville, Ohio, in 1924, Pake is
survived by his wife and four children.


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       OLTECO                    Ari Ollikainen
       P.O. BOX 20088            Networking Architecture & Technology
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