Jack D. Kuehler (August 29, 1932 – December 20, 2008) was an American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

who devoted the majority of his career at IBM, where he was the firm's highest ranking technologist, serving as president and later vice chairman of the company. Kuehler was born in

Grand Island, Nebraska Grand Island is a city in and the county seat of Hall County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 53,131 at the 2020 census. Grand Island is the principal city of the Grand Island metropolitan area, which consists of Hall, Merrick, ...

in 1932. He studied

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

and later earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from the school.Markoff, John
"Jack D. Kuehler, Former I.B.M. President, Dies at 76 "
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', December 31, 2008. Accessed January 5, 2009. Kuehler started at IBM in 1958 as an associate engineer working at the company's San Jose Research Laboratory in 1958. After advancing through various technical and managerial positions, he was appointed as director of the Raleigh Communications Laboratory in

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

in 1968, and as named as director of the San Jose and Menlo Park development laboratories in 1970.Jack D. Kuehler
IBM. Accessed January 5, 2008. He was chosen to serve as senior vice president in May 1982, and was appointed as vice chairman of the board and a member of the executive committee in January 1988 with responsibility for corporate manufacturing and systems and programming staffs. In May 1989, Kuehler became IBM President when

John Fellows Akers John Fellows Akers (December 28, 1934 – August 22, 2014) was an American businessman. He was president (1983-1989), chief executive officer (1985-1993) and chairman (1986-1993) of IBM. Education Akers attended Yale, and while there became a bro ...

relinquished that title; Akers continued to serve as Chairman and CEO of IBM. Kuehler's promotion was unusual since most IBM presidents came from sales instead of engineering, and being two years older than Akers he was unlikely to succeed him as CEO, therefore the title was seen as an acknowledgement of Kuehler's long service to the company as there was no reporting changes.
/ref> Kuehler played a key role in IBM's investment in

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

, aimed at helping that company survive against Japanese competitors and then later formed a partnership with

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

a company that had been one of IBM's fiercest competitors. He also played a key role in the formation of

Sematech SEMATECH (from Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology) is a not-for-profit consortium that performs research and development to advance chip manufacturing. SEMATECH has broad engagement with various sectors of the R&D community, including chipma ...

in 1987, an industry-wide initiative sponsored by the United States government aimed at revitalizing the American

semiconductor chip An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

industry. Shifting IBM from its longstanding reliance on the

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

, Kuehler dealt with the rise of the

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

-based

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

, through IBM's development of the

IBM Personal Computer The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

based on an open standard that relied on

processors and

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

software from

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. He was instrumental in an investment that IBM made in the chip maker Intel when that company was struggling because of the rise of Japanese memory chip manufacturers. He led IBM into a partnership with Hitachi, once one of its most tenacious rivals. He also played a central role in the creation of Sematech, an industry-government alliance created in 1987 to help save the American semiconductor industry. Kuehler helped create a partnership between IBM,

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

, and

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

that became known as the

AIM alliance The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Its goal was to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the POWER instruction set architecture. It ...

to challenge the dominating positions that Microsoft and Intel had in the personal computing business. Kuehler sought to expand the demand for its

Reduced instruction set computer In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comput ...

architecture, which was designed to achieve higher performance by running a smaller set of commands. Kuehler called

Michael Spindler Michael Spindler (22 December 1942 – 2017) was a German businessman who was president and CEO of Apple from 1993 to 1996. Spindler was born in Berlin. Personal life From 1985 until his death in 2017, Spindler lived between Paris, France, and Sa ...

, president of Apple Computer, who bought into the approach for a design that could challenge the

Wintel Wintel (portmanteau of Windows and Intel) is the partnership of Microsoft Windows and Intel producing personal computers using Intel x86-compatible processors running Microsoft Windows. Background By the early 1980s, the chaos and incompatibil ...

-based PC. By combining the advantages of IBM's hardware expertise and Apple's software advances, the goal was to create a competitor for the desktop market. This partnership created the

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

microprocessor that powered Apple's computers from 1994 to 2006. Kuehler was a trustee of

and donated $1 million to the college's engineering school in 2005. Kuehler died at age 76 on December 20, 2008 in

Rancho Santa Fe, California Rancho Santa Fe is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Diego County, California, United States, within the San Diego metropolitan area. The population was 3,156 at the 2020 census. The CDP is primarily residential with a few shopping blocks, ...

of complications related to

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

References

Sources

''Tributes''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuehler, Jack 1932 births 2008 deaths American electrical engineers Neurological disease deaths in California Deaths from Parkinson's disease IBM employees People from Grand Island, Nebraska Santa Clara University alumni 20th-century American engineers