Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke (September 11, 1939 – April 16, 2021) was an American businessman and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with

John Warnock John Edward Warnock (October 6, 1940 – August 19, 2023) was an American computer scientist, inventor, technology businessman, and philanthropist best known for co-founding Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company, wit ...

in 1982, with whom he also co-created the

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

document format.

Early life and education

Charles Matthew Geschke was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, on September 11, 1939. He attended Saint Ignatius High School. Geschke earned an BA in classics in 1962 and an MS in mathematics in 1963, both from

Xavier University Xavier University ( ) is a private Jesuit university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It is the sixth-oldest Catholic and fourth-oldest Jesuit university in the United States. Xavier had an enrollment of approximately 5,600 undergraduate an ...

. He taught mathematics at

John Carroll University John Carroll University (JCU) is a Private university, private Jesuit university in University Heights, Ohio, United States. Located in a suburb of Cleveland, it is primarily an undergraduate, liberal arts college, liberal arts institution compo ...

from 1963 to 1968.Classical Studies Dr. Charles M. "Chuck" Geschke
.

Willamette University Willamette University is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college with locations in Salem, Oregon, Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United ...

. Accessed December 31, 2010. In 1972, he completed his PhD studies in computer science at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

under the advice of

William Wulf William Allan Wulf (December 8, 1939 – March 10, 2023) was an American computer scientist notable for his work in programming languages and compilers. Early life and education Born in Chicago, Wulf attended the University of Illinois Urbana ...

. He was a co-author of Wulf's 1975 book ''

The Design of an Optimizing Compiler ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

''.

Career

Geschke started working at

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in October 1972. His first project was to build a

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, enterprise ...

. Afterward, he worked on programming languages and developed tools that were used to build the

Xerox Star The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox Star 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window- ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

. In 1978, Geschke started the Imaging Sciences Laboratory at PARC, and conducted research in the areas of graphics, optics, and image processing. He hired

, and together they developed Interpress, a page description language (PDL) that could describe forms as complex as

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

s. Unable to convince Xerox management of the commercial value of Interpress, the two left Xerox to start their own company.Charles Geschke 2002 Fellow Awards Recipient
.

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a computer museum in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the Information Age, and explores the Digital Revolution, computing revolution and its impact ...

. Accessed December 31, 2010. Geschke’s interviews are often featured in documentary films produced by the Silicon Valley Historical Association, including the PBS ''Silicon Valley, a One Hundred Year Renaissance,'' narrated by Walter Cronkite (1998)

Adobe

Geschke and Warnock founded

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

in Warnock's garage in 1982, naming the company after the Adobe Creek that ran behind Warnock's home. Interpress eventually evolved into

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...

. Its use on

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

computers resulted in one of the first

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online co ...

(DTP) systems which allowed users to compose documents on a

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

and see them on screen exactly as they would appear in print, a process known as

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for what you see is what you get, refers to software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web ...

, an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. Previously, graphic designers had been forced to view their work in text-only format while they worked, until they printed, or hit "print preview". Because of the high quality and speed at which printing and composing could be done in WYSIWYG, the innovation "spawned an entire industry" in modern printing and publishing. From December 1986 until July 1994, Geschke was Adobe's Chief Operating Officer, and from April 1989 until April 2000 he was the company's president. Geschke retired as president of Adobe in 2000, shortly before his partner Warnock left as CEO. Geschke had also been Co-Chairman of the Board of Adobe from September 1997 to 2017.Charles M. Geschke Co-Chairman of the Board Adobe Systems Inc
.

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

. Accessed December 31, 2010.Charles Geschke Bio

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private university, private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university' ...

. Accessed December 31, 2010. Adobe was mentioned in ''

400 Best Big Companies'' in 2009, and was ranked 1,069th on the ''

Forbes Global 2000 The ''Forbes'' Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world, published by: sales, profit, assets and market value. The list has been published annually since 2003. By country Forbes Global 2000 as of 2023: ...

'' list in 2010.

1992 kidnapping

On the morning of May 26, 1992, as Geschke was arriving for work in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

, he was kidnapped at gunpoint from the Adobe parking lot by two men, Mouhannad Albukhari, 26, of San Jose, and Jack Sayeh, 25, of Campbell. A spokesperson for the FBI reported that the agency had monitored phone calls that the kidnappers had made to Geschke's wife, demanding a ransom. The spokesperson added that Albukhari had been arrested after he had picked up the $650,000 ransom that Geschke's daughter had left at a drop-off point. An FBI agent explained that, " ter a gentlemanly discussion", Albukhari had brought them to a

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...

in Hollister, where Sayeh had been holding Geschke hostage. Geschke was released unhurt after being held for four days, although he stated that he had been chained."FBI rescues a kidnapped businessman"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. p. B7. Accessed December 31, 2010. The two kidnappers were eventually sentenced to life terms in state prison.

Awards

In 1999, Geschke was inducted as a fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

(ACM). In 2002, he was made a fellow of the

for "his accomplishments in the commercialization of desktop publishing with John Warnock and for innovations in scalable type, computer graphics and printing." In October 2006, Geschke, along with co-founder John Warnock received the annual AeA Medal of Achievement, making them the first software executives to receive this award. In 2008 he received the Computer Entrepreneur Award from the

IEEE Computer Society IEEE Computer Society (commonly known as the Computer Society or CS) is a technical society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated to computing, namely the major areas of hardware, software, standards and people ...

. He also won the 2008

National Medal of Technology and Innovation The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the president of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...

, awarded by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

.Past Recipients for the Computer Entrepreneur Award
.

. Accessed December 31, 2010. On October 15, 2010, the Marconi Society co-awarded Geschke and Warnock the Marconi Prize. On Sunday, May 20, 2012, Geschke delivered the commencement speech at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, where he had been a mathematics professor early in his career and was awarded an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters.Wittenberg, Ed
"John Carroll University commencement among events this weekend in University Heights"
''

The Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio; it is a major national newspaper. In the fall of 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily an ...

''. Sun News. Accessed May 20, 2012.

Affiliations

Geschke was on the boards of the

San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley, San Francisco, Hayes Valley ne ...

, the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, the

Commonwealth Club of California The Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization based in Northern California. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States. Membership is open to ...

, Tableau Software, the Egan Maritime Foundation, and the Nantucket Boys and Girls Club. He was also a member of the computer science advisory board at Carnegie Mellon University. In 1995, he was elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

. In 2008, he was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

. In 2010, he completed his term as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...

. In 2012, he was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

Personal life

Geschke was a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and met his wife Nancy "Nan" McDonough at a religious conference on social action in the spring of 1961. They married in 1964. Both were graduates of Catholic institutions. In 2012 they received the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Award from the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) for their contributions to Catholic education. Geschke's mother was a bankruptcy court paralegal. Both Geschke's father and paternal grandfather worked as

letterpress Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing for producing many copies by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against individual sheets of paper or a continuous roll of paper. A worker composes and locks movable t ...

photo engravers. Geschke's father helped during the early days of Adobe by checking

color separation Color printing or colour printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color (as opposed to simpler black and white or monochrome printing). History of color printing Woodblock printing on textiles preceded printing on paper in both Ea ...

work with his engraver's loupe. Geschke described his father's acknowledgment of the high quality of the

halftone Halftone is the reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone, continuous-tone imagery through the use of dots, varying either in size or in spacing, thus generating a gradient-like effect.Campbell, Alastair. ''The Designer's Lexicon''. ...

patterns as "a wonderful moment".

Death

Geschke, a longtime resident of Los Altos, died on April 16, 2021, at the age of 81. The cause of death was

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

. He is survived by his wife, three children and seven grandchildren.

References

External links

Biography at Computer History Museum

Los Altos Town Crier: A dramatic kidnapping revisited (part 1/4)

Los Altos Town Crier: Two days of terror, uncertainty (part 2/4)

Los Altos Town Crier: Chuck's dramatic rescue (part 3/4)

Los Altos Town Crier: Aftermath of a kidnapping (part 4/4)

Driving Adobe: Co-founder Charles Geschke on Challenges, Change and Values
interview of Charles Geschke's roles in Adobe
Image of Charles GeschkeOnline Copy of Geschke's PhD Thesis
on

DBLP DBLP is a computer science bibliography website. Starting in 1993 at Universität Trier in Germany, it grew from a small collection of HTML files and became an organization hosting a database and logic programming bibliography site. Since Novem ...

Profile
at the ACM Digital Library *
The Legacy Of Chuck Geschke, Co-Founder Of Adobe
' April 26, 2021 Obituary on

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geschke, Charles American technology company founders Engineers from California 1939 births 2021 deaths Adobe Inc. people 1999 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering National Medal of Technology recipients Carnegie Mellon University alumni Saint Ignatius High School (Cleveland) alumni Xavier University alumni Businesspeople from Cleveland Scientists from Cleveland People from Los Altos, California Scientists at PARC (company) Catholics from California Members of the American Philosophical Society