Howard Charles Lincoln (born February 14, 1940) is an American lawyer and businessman, known primarily for being the former Chairman of Nintendo of America and the former Chairman and

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

of the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

team, representing absentee majority owner

Hiroshi Yamauchi was a Japanese businessman and the third president of Nintendo, joining the company in 1949 until stepping down on 24 May 2002, being subsequently succeeded by Satoru Iwata. During his 53-year tenure, Yamauchi transformed Nintendo from a hanafu ...

until Yamauchi died on September 19, 2013.

Early life

Born in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, Lincoln was an active Boy Scout. As a thirteen-year-old boy, he posed for the famous Norman Rockwell painting '' The Scoutmaster'', which was published in a calendar in 1956. In the painting, young Lincoln is on the immediate right of the campfire. Lincoln eventually attained the rank of Eagle Scout and received a

Distinguished Eagle Scout Award The Distinguished Eagle Scout Award (DESA) is a distinguished service award of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). It is awarded to an Eagle Scout for distinguished service in his profession and to his community for a period of at least 25 years aft ...

. Lincoln

matriculated Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term "matriculation" is seldom used now. ...

in 1957 at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he earned his BA in political science in 1962 and his law degree from

Berkeley Law The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...

in 1965. From 1966 to 1970, he served as a Naval

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

within the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He then worked in private practice as an attorney in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington.

Nintendo

Lincoln did legal work in 1981 for Nintendo, culminating in the legal case '' Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.'', in which Universal City Studios had sued Nintendo claiming that the

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

Donkey Kong is a video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and owned by Nintendo. It follows the adventures of a gorilla named Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong and his clan of other Ape, apes and monkeys. The franchise primarily consists of plat ...

'' infringed upon Universal City Studio's rights to ''

King Kong King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...

''. Lincoln hired John Kirby to represent Nintendo in the courtroom. Nintendo won the case, as well as successive court appeals. Lincoln met Yamauchi in 1982 and joined Nintendo in 1983, as its Senior Vice President and General Counsel. He and

Minoru Arakawa is a Japanese businessman best known as the founder and former president of Nintendo of America, and the co-founder of Tetris Online, Inc. Biography Minoru Arakawa was born on 3 September 1946 in Kyoto, Japan, the second son of Waichiro Arakaw ...

were instrumental in rebuilding the North American

industry (after the crash of 1983) with their highly successful marketing of the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1994, he was appointed its chairman. As chairman of Nintendo, Lincoln was involved in litigation with Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari Games, about the rights to

Tetris ''Tetris'' (russian: link=no, Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute over the appro ...

, and defended Nintendo's use of the 10NES lock-out chip. He represented the company in the 1993 United States Senate hearings on video games, during which he promised

Joe Lieberman Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for ...

and Herb Kohl he would not release

Night Trap ''Night Trap'' is a 1992 interactive movie developed by Digital Pictures and published by Sega for the Sega CD. Presented primarily through full-motion video (FMV), ''Night Trap'' tasks the player to observe teenage girls having a sleepov ...

on a Nintendo console because it was considered inappropriate for children. Lincoln announced his retirement from Nintendo in 1999 and departed the company in 2000

Seattle Mariners

Lincoln's tenure as CEO of the

has seen both success and controversy. Lincoln was considered instrumental, along with former Senator

Slade Gorton Thomas Slade Gorton III (January 8, 1928 – August 19, 2020) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Washington from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1989 until 2001. A member of the Republican Party, he hel ...

, in preserving the team's location in Seattle and negotiating with the city for a new stadium, Safeco Field. His stewardship has seen the team's first post-season appearances, in 1995, 1997, 2000, and 2001, as well as the aggressive expansion of the Mariners into the Japanese market, most noticeably through the acquisition of Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki. He did not retain field managers and general managers like

Lou Piniella Louis Victor Piniella ( usually ; born August 28, 1943) is a former professional baseball player and manager. An outfielder, he played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals and ...

and

Pat Gillick Lawrence Patrick David Gillick (born August 22, 1937) is an American professional baseball executive. He previously served as the general manager of four MLB teams: the Toronto Blue Jays (1978–1994), Baltimore Orioles (1996–1998), Seattle Ma ...

He retired in 2016, concurrent with Nintendo selling its stake in the team.

Philanthropy

In addition to Lincoln's business achievements, he is an active philanthropist. He has served as campaign chair for United Way of King County and the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He is also a trustee of

Western Washington University Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a pri ...

References

External links

N-Sider profileWestern Washington University profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Howard Charles 1940 births Nintendo people Living people United States Navy officers Seattle Mariners executives Businesspeople from Oakland, California University of California, Berkeley alumni UC Berkeley School of Law alumni Lawyers from Oakland, California American chairpersons of corporations American chief executives of professional sports organizations Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award recipients Military personnel from California