Bill Terry RIP

 Two weeks ago, I posted that Bill Terry had passed away.   The San Jose Mercury-News just published his obituary this morning, at https://www.mercurynews.com/obituaries/william-terry-palo-alto-ca/

Obituaries are often sources of surprise for readers who thought they knew the person.  A note about Bill in that obit was a big surprise to friends of mine, but Bill and I had talked about this more than once.  "Bill found joy in simple pleasures as well. He was an avid stamp collector who appreciated history through philately."

What?   Why would Bill and I talk about that?   Well, long story short--I'd been sickly as a youngster, missing nearly 100 days of school in 3rd and 4th grades.  And if you miss a lot of school, how do you learn important things like history?  Well, stamp collecting is indeed a historian's delight.  Not only does the US honor all sorts of historic figures and events with stamps, most other countries do as well.  So for the avid collector, stamp collectding is a terrific hobby by which to learn facts that honor that country's heritage.   Moreover, it is an easy hobby, easy enough to do when bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound, Franklin Roosevelt, wheelchair-bound for his entire presidecny, was an avid philatelist, so was I, and so was Bill.  Bill's knowledge was so thorough through such means that he would routinely surprise if not stun engineers at HP with his broad collection of factoids, gathered from who knows where (at least as they viewed it).

The other thing noteworthy about Bill that the obit covered nicely was his dedication to Santa Clara University, somewhat unique within HP executive circles which was preponderantly Stanford oriented.  I taught both places, and have had extended family graduate from each (not to mention Berkeley or Caltech).   Most HP engineers were dismissive of the Santa Clara and San Jose State programs, but we surely got some great engineers from those places, and over the years, they've proven their worth.  The key thing for Santa Clara U for me, and for Bill, was their dedication to the ethical and moral worth of the pursuits.   In particular, two men--Jim Koch and Geoffrey Bowker-were key for years.  

Jim served as the Dean of the Leavey School of Business in 1990 to 1996.  He also was on the Informix Board of Directors, which is where I first got to know him.  He was the founding director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society (now the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship), which examines the intersection of technology and organizational change.

Geoffrey and his accomplished wife, Susan Leigh Star, were the founding STS leaders for SCU for Koch's department, a department that Bill Terry supported with great enthusiasm.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_C._Bowker.     

One never knows in advance how one person's life--their actions, their values, and their support--will play out in your own life.  What's the phrase--"never burn a bridge"?   I wasn't happy (duh, really?) when Bill Terry tried to scotch my XYZ display back in 1966, but later I had to agree that he did allow it to continue even though he could have stopped it.   But when he was in Cupertino, he graciously invited our Logic team to work with his engineers (in particular, Bert Forbes, who took us to IBM Santa Theresa and the rest became history).   And then he was very supportive of the HP Corporate Engineering role.  But more than that, long after we'd both left HP, he was supportive of both the UC Santa Barbara Center for Information impact on Technology and Science (CITS), and later of MediaX at Stanford.

I could go on and on, but I shall not do so here.   Just raise a cup tonight to this great man, Bill Terry.