Allen, Paul Gardner (21 Jan. 1953–15 Oct. 2018), software pioneer, investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, was born in Seattle, Washington to Kenneth Allen, a University of Washington librarian, and Faye Gardner Allen, a teacher. He attended Lakeside School in Seattle. In ninth grade he met seventh-grader Bill Gates, with whom he shared an enthusiasm for computer programming. During their school years they worked on computers after hours at their school, at a downtown computer center, and at the University of Washington computer science lab. They formed a company that they called Traf-O-Data to count traffic volumes, a very early entry in the “smart city” movement. In the summer of ...
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Robert A. Burgelman and Charles H. House
Hewlett, William (Bill) (30 May 1913–12 Jan. 2001), engineer, electronics industry executive, and philanthropist, was born William Redington Hewlett in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Louise Redington and Albion Walter Hewlett. His father was a professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. In ...
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Laura Micheletti Puaca
Hicks, Beatrice Alice (2 Jan. 1919–21 Oct. 1979), engineer, inventor, and business executive, was born Beatrice Alice Hickstein to Florence Benedict Neben and William Lux Hickstein in Orange, New Jersey. She often recounted that she was drawn to the field of engineering at the age of thirteen when her father, a chemical engineer, took her to see the Empire State Building and the George Washington Bridge. Amazed by the structures, she inquired who built them, and upon learning they were designed by engineers, she decided that she wanted to become one as well. As a student at Orange High School, she enjoyed mathematics, physics, chemistry, and mechanical drawing. Her academic interests and professional aspirations, however, received little support from her family, friends, and teachers. Her parents, concerned with having to finance special schooling for Beatrice’s younger sister, Margaret, who was born with an intellectual disability, encouraged her to study stenography instead. Meanwhile, she encountered outright opposition from her classmates and some of her teachers, who made a point of telling her that engineering—where women made up less than one percent of the profession—was not a suitable field for female students....
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Jeffrey Cronin
Knoll, Florence (24 May 1917–15 Jan. 2019), architect, furniture designer, and business executive, was born Florence Marguerite Schust in Saginaw, Michigan, to Frederick Emanuel Schust, a Swiss-born superintendent of a commercial bakery, and Mina Matila Haist. Orphaned at age fourteen, she was under the care of a legal guardian, family friend Emile Tessin, who enrolled her in ...
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Ann T. Keene
Percy, Charles Hartung (27 Sept. 1919–17 Sept. 2011), business executive and politician, was born in Pensacola, Florida, to Edward H. Percy, a bank cashier with distinguished family roots in Alabama and Virginia, and Elizabeth Harting Percy, a concert violinist from Illinois. During young Percy’s infancy the family moved to Chicago, where two more children were born. The Percys led a comfortable life in the 1920s, providing their children with music lessons and other middle-class amenities. By ...
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Sheri J. Caplan
Roebling, Mary G. (29 July 1905–25 Oct. 1994), banker and the first woman governor of the American Stock Exchange, was born Mary Gindhart in West Collingswood, New Jersey, the eldest of four children of Isaac Dare Gindhart, Jr., a telephone company executive, and Mary W. Gindhart, a vocalist and pianist. As a child Mary displayed a hardy work ethic by picking strawberries for a penny per box, and this industriousness later characterized her career. She attended public schools in Haddonfield and Moorestown, New Jersey before leaving high school in ...
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Siebert, Muriel Faye (12 Sept. 1928–24 Aug. 2013), financial expert and the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the younger of two daughters of Jewish parents, Margaret Eunice (Roseman), a housewife, and Irwin J. Siebert, a dentist. From childhood on she was known as “Mickie.”...
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Claire Dunning
Ylvisaker, Paul Norman (28 Nov. 1921–17 Mar. 1992), public official, foundation executive, and educator, was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota to Dr. Sigurd Christian Ylvisaker and Norma Norem. The couple had five children. His father was a Lutheran minister and professor, and starting in ...
