Tech Pioneer Hewlett Dies

William Hewlett, the affable engineer who co-founded Silicon Valley electronics pioneer Hewlett-Packard Co. and helped guide it into the computer age, died Friday. He was 87.

Hewlett, who started the company with friend and partner David Packard in 1938, died in his sleep of natural causes, surrounded by family, HP spokesman Dave Berman said.

Carly Fiorina, HP chairman, president and chief executive officer, hailed Hewett as "a great and gentle man."

HP's shirt-sleeved engineering brain, Hewlett saw the company grow from a garage startup with his friend David Packard, making "anything to bring in a nickel," to a multibillion-dollar manufacturer of high-quality computers and scientific instruments.

Forbes magazine listed him as one of the wealthiest Americans, ranking him No. 26 in 2000 with an estimated net worth of $9 billion.

But Hewlett ranked among his greatest accomplishments Hewlett-Packard's management style that still serves as a model for other companies.

"I guess that's what I'm most proud of the fact that we really created a way to work with employees, let them share in the profits and still keep control of it," Hewlett recalled when he retired as vice chairman in 1987. He was the company's president and chief executive until the late 1970s.

Former colleagues praised both Hewlett's keen intelligence and his amiable character. Despite his position and great wealth, Hewlett lacked all pretense, delighting in working on new products side-by-side with employees or playing penny ante poker with them.

"He was an incredible person intellectually. He could listen to something and get the gist, the meat of it very quickly — even with Nobel Prize winners," said James G. Treybig, founder and chief executive of Tandem Computers Inc., who spent five years at HP in the late 1960s and early '70s.

"Yet at the same time he had the ability to relate with people, so everyone would have respect for him," Treybig said in a 1991 interview with The Associated Press. "He was a regular person … He wasn't a stand-alone president, aloof."
Hewlett also was a noted philanthropist, giving tens of millions of dollars to environmental, educational and humanitarian causes individually and through a large family foundation.

He was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1913 but grew up in California, where his father was a professor of medicine at Stanford.

It was at Stanford that he met and became friends with Packard, another engineering student. Both graduated in 1934, with Packard going to work for General Electric Co. in New York and Hewlett earning a master's degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A few years later, both were back in Palo Alto, where they decided to start their own company in a rented garage that is now a state landmark. Hewlett and Packard formalized their partnership n New Year's Day 1939 with a coin toss to decide the company name.

It wasn't easy starting a company during the Depression, Hewlett told reporters in 1987.

"In the beginning, we did anything to bring in a nickel," he recalled. "We had a bowling lane foul line indicator. We had a thing that would make a urinal flush automatically as soon as a guy came in front of it. We had a shock machine to make people lose weight."

The young company's first success was Hewlett's audio oscillator, a device to test sound equipment. Walt Disney bought eight for the film Fantasia.

The company grew quickly after World War II, during which Hewlett served in the Army Signal Corps. It later expanded from electronic and scientific instruments to calculators, computers and printers. It is now one of the nation's largest computer makers.

Hewlett and Packard shared some basic belief about managing a company: disdain of strict hierarchy and formality, admiration for individual creativity and initiative, and trust in employees. Packard wrote down the company credo, which became known as the "HP Way."

Industry observers say the founders' beliefs were put into practice and helped HP produce new products and engendered loyalty among employees.

Hewlett stepped down as HP's president in 1977 and chief executive officer the following year. He remained vice chairman until 1987. Packard retired as chairman in September 1993. When Packard died in 1996, at age 83, Hewlett said it was "a loss to the company and to the country that he loved so well."

Hewlett also was involved in a variety of scientific and industry organizations. In 1985, then-President Reagan awarded Hewlett the National Medal of Science, America's highest scientific honor.

Hewlett is survived by his wife, Rosemary; five children from his first marriage; and five stepchildren from his second marriage. His first wife, Flora, died in 1977.

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