Kenneth Wayne Simonds (May 5, 1935 – October 11, 2009) was an American businessman and philanthropist.

Life

He began his career in 1958 at IBM and was the youngest IBM manager when promoted to Green Bay,

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

. He left IBM in 1975 to become an executive with

Amdahl Corporation Amdahl Corporation was an information technology company which specialized in IBM mainframe-compatible computer products, some of which were regarded as supercomputers competing with those from Cray Research. Founded in 1970 by Gene Amdahl, a for ...

, starting as vice president of Western operations in 1975. He was promoted in 1976 to Vice President of Product Support and Services and promoted in 1979 to Senior Vice President of U.S. Operations. In 1981, he was promoted to

Executive Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

and

Chief Operating Officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if ...

where he would stay until briefly going into retirement in 1984. He was a member of the team which had led Amdahl from no revenue in 1975 to $800 million dollars in revenue in 1984. He left retirement a year later, going to work for

Teradata Teradata Corporation is an American software company that provides cloud database and analytics-related software, products, and services. The company was formed in 1979 in Brentwood, California, as a collaboration between researchers at Caltech ...

in 1985 as

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

. He stayed with Teradata, through its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

in 1987 and sale to NCR Corporation in 1991 for $250 million. He retired shortly after that.

Personal life

1935-1975

Kenneth Wayne Simonds was born to Pauline and Wayne Simonds May 5, 1935. In his earlier childhood, he was in

Boy Scouts Boy Scouts may refer to: * Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement. * Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement. * An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are ...

. As a child he had a pet pig named "Monster." In 1949 he attended

Dobyns-Bennett High School Dobyns-Bennett High School is a high school ( grades 9–12) in Kingsport, Tennessee, United States. It typically educates around 1,800 students, although enrollment for the 2014–15 academic year exceeded 2,100 students. As a part of Kingsport ...

in Kingsport, Tennessee where he played many sports including football and track. He graduated high school in 1953. He attended

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

for a year on a football scholarship but later transferred to

East Tennessee State University East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is a public research university in Johnson City, Tennessee. Although it is part of the State University and Community College System of Tennessee, the university is governed by an institutional Board of Tr ...

. He ran for University Student Body, while there. In 1957 graduated from with a BS in business. Later that year, he would meet his wife Sarah "Sally" Simonds in IBM classes. In 1958 he married Sarah in Columbus, Ohio. In 1959 their first child, Robert "Rob", was born and they went on to have four other children Cindy, David, Joe and Kenneth Jr. In 1975 they moved to

Los Altos, California Los Altos (; Spanish for "The Heights") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 31,625 according to the 2020 census. Most of the city's growth occurred between 1950 and 1980. Originally ...

. Kenneth's eldest son, Robert, would also enter into the computer industry, joining Amdahl in 1985.

1980-2009 and beyond

In the mid 1980s, the Simonds family moved to Manhattan Beach, California and after retirement from Teradata, they moved to

Indian Wells, California Indian Wells is a city in Riverside County, California, in the Coachella Valley. Incorporated in 1967, it lies in between the cities of Palm Desert and La Quinta. As of the 2010 Census, the city population was 4,958. The city hosts the sixt ...

in the Coachella Valley 1993. He was an assistant football coach for

Palm Desert High School Palm Desert High School is a secondary school located in Palm Desert, California. The school is a part of the Desert Sands Unified School District. Academics Palm Desert offers numerous Advanced Placement and Honors courses, amongst CP class ...

during the 1999-2000 season. He died on October 11, 2009, at his home in Indian Wells. His funeral was held at Southwest Church in Palm Desert. His resting place is Indio, California. In 2015 his wife contributed one million dollars in his name to help fund the building of the football stadium at East Tennessee State University, a goal he had while alive. In the years following his death, Sarah Simonds has made considerable donations to some of Simonds' favorite charities in his honor.

Interest in the golf industry

In 1988, Simonds founded the Practice Tee Corporation and built three facilities and courses for practice. In 1996, he sold the business to Family Golf Centers, a public company. He opened The Golf Center in Palm Desert in 1995. The Simonds family continued to own and operate the facilities for many years after until the mid-2000s when they sold it to The First Tee, where it continues to operate as a First Tee facility.

Awards and legacy

In 1981 Simonds received the "Spirit of Life" Award from the

City of Hope Medical Center City of Hope is a private, not-for-profit clinical research center, hospital and graduate school located in Duarte, California, United States. The center's main campus resides on of land adjacent to the boundaries of Duarte and Irwindale, with ...

as Humanitarian of the Year from the Technology Community. Simonds was a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year in Southern California in 1989. In 2000 Simonds was named Outstanding Alumnus by East Tenn. State University. Simonds wanted to bring back the ETSU football team and in 2007 was prepared to make a large donation before the plans fell through. In 2008 he and his wife were awarded the Outstanding

Community Leader Community leader is a designation, often by secondary sources (particularly in the media), for a person widely perceived to represent a community. A simple way to understand community leadership is to see it as leadership in, for and by the communit ...

Award by the

College of the Desert College of the Desert (COD) is a public community college in Palm Desert, California. COD enrolls about 12,500 students, of which around one third attend college full-time. It serves the Coachella Valley of Riverside County. The college is fede ...

Alumni Foundation. In 2009, Simonds was posthumously inducted into the Dobyns-Bennett Alumni Association Hall of Fame. In 2011, the Athletic performance center at College of the Desert was opened, named after him. In 2015 Simonds was posthumously awarded the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Philanthropy by

Tennessee Board of Regents The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR or The College System of Tennessee) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of two public university systems, the other being the University of Tennessee system. It was autho ...

member Parker Smith as well as his wife for their donations given to ETSU. In 2015 Simonds' wife Sarah and their children Ken Jr., David and Joseph were presented with a football signed by current ETSU football players at halftime of a game. Kenneth and his family are honored outside of the new ETSU stadium with plaques along with the other donors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simonds, Kenneth 1935 births 20th-century American businesspeople IBM people Teradata Kingsport, Tennessee 2009 deaths