Business & brands / Science & invention
Bill Hewlett
1913–2001 · engineer, entrepreneur
Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, born in Ann Arbor, where his father taught at the University of Michigan Medical School.
- Born
Ann Arbor, Michigan- Died
Palo Alto, California
aged 87- Birth name
- William Redington Hewlett
- Also known as
- William Redington Hewlett · William Hewlett
- Detroit years
- 1913–1916
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Hewlett was born in Ann Arbor in 1913; his father, Albion Walter Hewlett, was a professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. When he was a small child the family moved to San Francisco, where his father took up a post with Stanford's medical school, so his Michigan years were brief. He studied at Stanford and MIT, and in 1939, in a rented garage in Palo Alto, he and his Stanford classmate David Packard started the company that became Hewlett-Packard. Its first product, an audio oscillator designed by Hewlett, was bought by Walt Disney Studios for Fantasia. HP grew into one of the largest electronics and computer makers in the world, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, founded in 1966, became one of the largest U.S. philanthropies.
Highlights
- Co-founded Hewlett-Packard with David Packard in a Palo Alto garage, 1939
- Designed HP's first product, the 200A audio oscillator
- National Medal of Science, 1983
- Founded the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, 1966
- Born in Ann Arbor, 1913