2006:  John Warnock and Chuck Geschke, Adobe Systems Incorporated
John Warnock and Chuck Geschke co-founded Adobe Systems in 1982, the two have worked closely together to develop a stream of pioneering software products that leverage Adobe's core strengths in graphics, publishing, and electronic document technology. Geschke and Warnock share the chairmanship of the board.

2005:  Thomas J. Engibous, Texas Instruments Incorporated
Tom Engibous is chairman of Texas Instruments, one of the world’s leading electronics companies. He has been a member of the TI Board of Directors since 1996 and has been with the company since 1976.

2004:  Richard M. Levy, Ph. D., Varian Medical Systems
Richard Levy was named president and CEO of Varian Medical Systems in 1998, when Varian Associates, Inc. separated into three independent businesses. Prior to the “spin,” Levy served as executive vice president of Varian Associates.

2003
All past Medal of Achievement recipients were recognized at the 60th Annual Gala.

2002:  Edward "Ned" Barnholt, Agilent Technologies
Barnholt is chairman, president and CEO of Agilent Technologies, a 1999 spinoff of Hewlett-Packard Company. Before successfully guiding Agilent through its separation from HP he led three of the company’s business groups and helped shape the HP corporate culture, widely recognized as best in class on a global basis.

2001:  W.J. Sanders, Advanced Micro Devices
In 1969 Sanders and seven others launched Advanced Micro Devices, a leading U.S. based merchant semiconductor manufacturer. He currently serves as founder and chairman of the board. Sanders has an impressive history of sales and marketing accomplishments in the semiconductor industry. He co-founded the Semiconductor Industry Association, the Semiconductor Research Corporation and the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation.

2000:  Charles R. Trimble, Trimble Navigation Ltd.
Trimble founded Trimble Navigation Ltd. in 1978, serving as its CEO until 1998. Under his leadership, Trimble Navigation grew from a startup to a leadership position in the field of GPS information technology.

1999:  Lewis E. Platt, Hewlett-Packard Company
Platt joined the Hewlett-Packard Company in 1966 and held various management and executive positions. In 1992 he was elected president, CEO and member of the board of directors and succeeded David Packard as chairman in 1993. Platt retired as president and
CEO of HP in 1999. More recently, he retired as CEO of Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, Ltd.

1998:  Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs, QUALCOMM, Inc.
Dr. Jacobs is a co-founder, chairman and CEO of QUALCOMM Inc., a pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology now used by tens of millions of consumers worldwide. Prior to QUALCOMM, Dr. Jacobs held positions in the technology industry and in education.

1996:  James F. Gibbons, Stanford University
Dr. Gibbons joined the Stanford faculty in 1957 and was named Reid Weaver Dennis Professor of Engineering in 1983. He served as Special counsel to the president for industry relations from 1996 to 2000. A gifted educator, he invented the Tutored Video Instruction Technique, which has become a model for in-plant education of engineers.

1995:  J. Richard Iverson, American Electronics Association
Iverson was president and CEO of AeA from 1986 to 1995. Prior to that, he was a senior executive with Gould.

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1994:  Gary L. Tooker, Motorola
Tooker was named chief operating officer of Motorola Inc. in 1988, president in 1990 and vice chairman and CEO in 1993. In 1996 he was elected chairman of the board. He retired in 1999.

1993:  Gordon E. Moore, Intel Corporation & Andrew S. Grove, Intel Corporation
Dr. Moore co-founded Intel Corporation in 1968. Moore was initially executive vice president and became president and CEO in 1975 and chairman of the board and CEO in 1979. He now
serves as chairman emeritus. He is widely known for “Moore’s Law,” which predicts the number of transistors industry would be able to place on a computer chip.

In 1968, Dr. Grove helped found Intel Corporation. In 1979, he was named president and in 1987 became CEO. He became chairman and CEO of Intel in 1997. He has since relinquished the CEO title, remaining as chairman of the board. He has written over 40 technical papers and holds several patents on semiconductor devices and technology. He was named Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” in 1997.

1992:  Malcolm R. Currie, Hughes Aircraft Company
Dr. Currie served as vice president and general manager of the engineering division of Hughes Aerospace Group from 1955 to 1969.  He left Hughes in 1969 to join Beckman Instruments Inc., as vice president of research and development and corporate planning. He rejoined Hughes in 1977 and went on to become chairman and CEO, where he served until 1993. He also served as Under Secretary of Defense Research and Engineering.

1991:  Ian Ross, AT&T Bell Laboratories
Ross led Bell Laboratories through the reorganization that followed the breakup of the Bell System and the conversion of AT&T’s long-distance network from analog to digital switching and transmission. He served as president from 1979-1991.

1990:  John Young, Hewlett-Packard Company
Young joined Hewlett-Packard Company in 1958. In 1968, he was named president and CEO, and in 1983 he became chairman of the executive committee of the board of directors. He retired in 1992.

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1989:  Thomas J. Watson, Jr., IBM Corporation
In 1956, Watson became CEO of IBM, leading it from an age of mechanical tabulators and typewriters into the computer era.  When he became CEO in 1956, IBM employed 72,500 people; when he stepped down in 1971, employees numbered more than 270,000.

1988:  Robert W. Galvin, Motorola
Galvin was senior officer of Motorola from 1959 until 1990, when he became chairman of the executive committee, a position he left in 2001. Under his leadership, Motorola became the first large company-wide winner of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award.

1987:  Thomas J. Davis, Jr., Mayfield Fund & Arthur Rock, Arthur Rock & Company
Davis, along with Arthur Rock, founded Davis & Rock in 1961, one of the earliest venture capital firms in the U.S. Davis was known throughout Silicon Valley as the “Dean of Venture Capital.” He also co-founded Mayfield Fund in 1969 with friend Wally Davis.

Rock is principal of Arthur Rock & Co., one of the leading venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. He was also a founder of Davis & Rock in 1961, one of the first venture capital firms in the United States.

1986:  H. Ross Perot, Electronic Data Systems
In 1962, Perot founded Electronic Data Systems, a highly successful technology services company. In 1984, he sold EDS to General Motors and he founded Perot Systems Corporation, where he served as CEO until 1992 and again from 1997 to 2000. He ran for
President of the United States in 1992, capturing 19 percent of the vote.

1985:  E.E. Ferrey, American Electronics Association
Ferrey was president of WEMA and AeA from 1974 to 1986.  He served on the WCEMA board of directors from 1961 to 1974.

1984:  An Wang, Wang Laboratories
Dr. Wang, a computer engineer and inventor, founded Wang Laboratories in 1951. He invented several important computer technologies, including the pulse-transfer controlling device, an important early contribution to the magnetic core memory.  Dr. Wang served as chairman of the board and CEO until his death in 1990.

1983:  John G. Linvill, Stanford University
In 1955 Dr. Linvill joined Stanford University as a faculty member in electrical engineering. He retired in 1990 as Canon USA Professor of Engineering emeritus. In recent years, Professor Linvill’s research has focused on the area of integrated systems.

1982:  Frank T. Cary, IBM Corporation
Cary joined IBM in 1948 and held numerous positions, joining the board of directors in 1968. He served as CEO from 1973 to 1981 and chairman of the board from 1973 to 1983. After stepping down as chairman and CEO, he remained a director of the company until 1991.

1981:  Kenneth H. Olsen, Digital Equipment Corporation
Olson founded Digital Equipment Corp. in 1957 and served as its president until October of 1992. Under his leadership DEC grew from three employees to the world’s leading supplier of networked computer systems, software and services - employing over 120,000 people.

1980:  William J. Perry, U.S. Department of Defense
Dr. Perry founded ESL Inc. and served as president from 1964 to 1977. He went on to serve as undersecretary of defense from 1977-1981 and executive vice president of Hambrecht & Quist from 1981 to 1985. Dr. Perry was founder and chairman of Technology Strategies and Alliances from 1985 to 1993. He served as the 19th U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1994 to1997 and is currently a professor at Stanford University, with a joint appointment in the School of Engineering and the Institute for International Studies.

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1979:  William C. Norris, Control Data Corporation
Norris is founder and chairman emeritus of Control Data Corporation. He founded the company in 1957 and is a pioneer in the development of computer technology. Under his leadership,
Control Data pioneered large-scale scientific and engineering computers, computer services and the use of technology in education. Mr. Norris retired as chairman and CEO in 1986.

1978:  C. Lester Hogan, Fairchild Camera & Instrument
In 1950, at Bell Laboratories, Dr. Hogan built the first microwave gyrator, isolator and circulator on single circuit passive nonreciprocal elements, without which microwave communicators
would be impossible. He served as a professor at Harvard before joining Motorola in 1958. After leaving Motorola, Dr. Hogan served as president and CEO of Fairchild Camera and Instruments from 1968 until 1987.

1977:  Arthur A. Collins, Collins Radio
Collins founded Collins Radio Company in 1933 with eight employees and $29,000 in cash. He designed circuits, fabricated chassis, mounted and wired in components, tested, packed and
shipped each radio unit at a time when ham radio equipment had to be purchased as components.

1976:  John M. Fluke, John Fluke Manufacturing
Fluke, a technology industry pioneer, founded John Fluke Manufacturing Company in 1948 . He was the firm’s first president and later became chairman of the board. The company develops and produces electronic test and measurement instruments.

1975:  William H. Pickering, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Dr. Pickering joined Jet Propulsion Laboratories in 1944 with several years of experience in the design and use of telemetering devices. In 1954 he was appointed director. He oversaw development of the first U.S. satellite (Explorer I) in 1958, the first successful circumlunar space probe (Pioneer IV), and the surveyor lunar landings that returned the first close-up, high resolution pictures of the lunar surface. Dr. Pickering retired from JPL in 1976. He is currently the chairman of the board of Lignetics Inc., which he founded in 1983.

1974:  Robert N. Noyce, Intel Corporation
Noyce was among a group of young scientists at Fairchild Semiconductor who took part in the development of the integrated circuit. He was a co-founder of Intel Corporation in 1968 and was president until 1975. Noyce served as chairman of the board from 1975 to 1979.

1973:  John S. Foster, U.S. Department of Defense
Dr. Foster is chairman of the board of Pilkington Aerospace and chairman of Technology Strategies and Alliances. From 1965 to 1973, He was director of defense research and engineering for the U.S. Department of Defense. He retired from TRW as vice president in 1988 and continued as a TRW director from 1988 to 1994.

1972:  Patrick E. Haggerty, Texas Instruments, Inc.
Haggerty was chairman of the board and chief corporate officer of Texas Instruments, Inc. He served Texas Instruments for more than 30 years and had been with the company since 1945.

1971:  William R. Hewlett, Hewlett-Packard Company
Hewlett was co-founder of electronics giant Hewlett-Packard. He invented the audio oscillator, the first practical method of generating audio signals. He served as president of HP from 1964 to 1977 and as CEO from 1969 to 1978.

1970:  Simon Rano, TRW
Dr. Ramo joined General Electric Research Laboratories in 1936, where he accumulated 25 patents before the age of 30 and developed the electron microscope. Dr. Ramo joined Hughes
Aircraft Company, where he served as vice president of operations over R&D, product engineering and manufacturing.  In 1953, Ramo and Dean Wooldridge founded Ramo-Wooldridge Corp., later to become TRW. In the last decade of his leadership of TRW, he was vice-chairman of the board of directors and chairman of the board’s executive committee until his retirement in 1978.

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1969:  John R. Moore, Rockwell International & Lee A. DuBridge, California Institute of Technology
Moore has been involved in the high-tech industry since 1937. He led the theoretical section of GE’s first missile program. From 1946 to 1955, Moore served as associate professor at
Washington University. From 1955 until his retirement in 1989, he held positions at North American Aviation.

DuBridge served as director of MIT’s radiation laboratories from 1940 to 1945. From 1946 to 1969 he served as president of the California Institute of Technology, directing the school through 23 years of growth, doubling the size of its faculty and tripling the school’s physical space.

1968:  Alexander M. Poniatoff, Ampex Corporation
Poniatoff founded Ampex Corporation in 1944. Under his leadership, Ampex created the commercial videotape recorder and demonstrated it in 1956 at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Chicago. Poniatoff named the company based on his initials, A.M.P. plus ex for excellence.

1967:  Lawrence A. Hyland, Hughes Aircraft
In 1932 Dr. Hyland founded the Radio Research Company, which later became Bendix Corporation, where he rose from division manager to vice president of research and engineering. In 1954 Dr. Hyland was named general manager of Hughes Aircraft Company.
He became president of the company after the death of Howard Hughes in 1976. He was appointed chairman of the board in 1977 and went on to serve as chairman emeritus.

1966:  Sigurd Varian & Russell H. Varian, Varian Associates, Inc.
The Varian brothers, along with William Hansen, invented the klystron tube, a high-frequency amplifier for generating microwaves in 1937. During WWII the brothers moved to the Sperry
Laboratories. In 1948, they founded Varian Associates with Sigurd as chairman of the board and Russell as president. Their inventions had an impact on military, medical and industrial
electronics systems and established their company for the long term. With the loss of the two founding brothers within two years, Edward Ginzton picked up the Varian legacy as chairman and CEO of the company in 1961.

1965:  Charles B. Thornton, Litton Industries, Inc.
Thornton joined Hughes Aircraft in 1948 and in five years had reorganized the firm with sales rising from $1.5 million to $200 million. He formed Litton Industries in 1953 and became chairman of the board.

1964:  Howard Vollum, Tektronix, Inc.
In 1946, Vollum founded Tektronix and became its president.  Vellum is known for his work in the development of the cathode-ray oscilloscope.

1963:  Fredrick E. Terman, Stanford University
Dr. Terman joined the engineering faculty at Stanford in 1925 and by 1942 had become a full professor. From 1942 to 1945, he directed the Harvard University Radio Research Laboratory.
In 1945, he returned to Stanford as dean of the School of Engineering.

1962:  Daniel E. Noble, Motorola
Dr. Noble joined Motorola as director of research in 1940 and held various executive positions until his semi-retirement in 1970.  He is now executive vice chairman emeritus of the board of
Motorola. His first work included development of FM communications equipment and the installation of the nation’s first statewide two-way radio communications system. In 1949 he
started the Solid State Electronics research laboratory for Motorola, which eventually led to the establishment of the Semiconductor Products Division.

1961:  Arnold O. Beckman, Beckman Instruments
Dr. Beckman was founder-chairman emeritus of Beckman Instruments. He is considered one of the top five inventors of scientific instruments, creating devices that revolutionized the study
and understanding of human biology, ultimately saving countless lives.

1960:  David Packard, Hewlett-Packard Company
David Packard was a co-founder with William Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard Company in 1939. He served as president of HP from 1947 to 1964, CEO from 1964 to 1968, and chairman of the board from 1964 to 1968 and again from 1972 to 1993. He served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1971.

1959:  H. Leslie Hoffman, Hoffman Radio, & Richard L. Paullus, WEMA Company
Hoffman founded the Hoffman Electronics Corporation, a company that pioneered television, radio, solar cell and navigational technology in 1941. He served as president and CEO until his death in 1971. Hoffman grew a small Los Angeles radio manufacturer into a multimillion-dollar national corporation with seven divisions, including consumer products, semiconductors, military products and education.

Paullus was manager of the WCEMA office in Southern California from 1957 to 1959.

More AeA History...

• Overview of AeA's History

• Current AeA Board of Directors

• Past Winners of the AeA Medal of Achievement Award

• AeA High-Tech Timeline