Alan Field Shugart (September 27, 1930 – December 12, 2006) was an American engineer, entrepreneur and business executive whose career defined the modern computer disk drive industry.

Personal history

Born in Los Angeles, he graduated from the

University of Redlands The University of Redlands is a private university in Redlands, California, United States. The university's main, residential campus is situated on 160 acres (65 ha) near downtown Redlands. An additional eight regional locations throughout Calif ...

, receiving a degree in

engineering physics Engineering physics (EP), sometimes engineering science, is the field of study combining pure science disciplines (such as physics, mathematics, chemistry or biology) and engineering disciplines (computer, nuclear, electrical, aerospace, medic ...

. Shugart was the father of three children: Joanne Shugart (1951–1954), Christopher D. Shugart (b. 1953) and Teri L.K. Shugart (b. 1955). Shugart was married to Esther Marrs (née Bell), the mother of his three children, from 1951 until 1973. He was married to Rita Shugart (née Kennedy) from 1981 until his death. Shugart died at age 76 on December 12, 2006, in

Monterey, California Monterey ( ; ) is a city situated on the southern edge of Monterey Bay, on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. Located in Monterey County, California, Monterey County, the city occupies a land area of and recorded a popu ...

, of complications from heart surgery he had undergone six weeks earlier.

Career

He began his career in 1951 as a field engineer at

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. In 1955, he transferred to the IBM San Jose laboratory where he worked on the

IBM 305 RAMAC The IBM 305 RAMAC was the first commercial computer that used a moving-head hard disk drive (magnetic disk storage) for secondary storage. The system was publicly announced on September 14, 1956,

. He rose through a series of increasingly important positions to become the Direct Access Storage Product Manager, responsible for disk storage products, IBM's most profitable businesses at that time. Among the groups reporting to Shugart was the team that invented the

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

. Shugart joined

Memorex Memorex Corp. began as a magnetic tape, computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer el ...

in 1969 as Vice President of its Equipment Division and led the development of its 3660 (compatible with IBM 2314) and 3670 (compatible with IBM 3330) disk storage subsystems. His team also developed the Memorex 650, one of the first commercially available floppy disk drives. He founded

Shugart Associates Shugart Associates (later Shugart Corporation) was a computer peripheral manufacturer that dominated the floppy disk drive market in the late 1970s and is famous for introducing the -inch "Minifloppy" floppy disk drive. In 1979 it was one of the ...

in February 1973 and resigned as CEO in October 1974. The company was later acquired by

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 ...

. Then he and Finis Conner started Shugart Technology in 1979, which soon changed its name to

Seagate Technology Seagate Technology Holdings plc is an American Computer data storage, data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology and commenced business in 1979. Since 2010, the company has been incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with ...

. In 1991, Shugart resumed his tenure as CEO of Seagate. Seagate went on to become the world’s largest independent manufacturer of disk drives and related components. In July 1998, Shugart resigned his positions with Seagate.

Political activity

In 1996, he launched an unsuccessful campaign to elect Ernest, his

Bernese Mountain Dog The Bernese Mountain Dog, or , is a large dog breed originating from the canton of Bern, Switzerland and the Swiss Alps. It is one of four Sennenhund-dog type, type breeds, with ancestral roots in Ancient Rome, Roman mastiffs. The name ''Berner ...

, to Congress. Shugart later wrote about that experience in a book, ''Ernest Goes to Washington (Well, Not Exactly)''. He backed a failed ballot initiative in 2000 to give California voters the option of choosing "none of the above" in elections.

Awards

He received the 1997 IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award. In 2005, he was made a Fellow of the

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 ...

"for his lifelong contributions to the creation of the modern disk drive industry."

References

External links

Al Shugart's Speech At Conference marking 100th Anniversary of Magnetic Recording, December 14, 1998Al Shugart milestones at Computer History MuseumAl Shugart biography at Computer History Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shugart, Alan 1930 births 2006 deaths American computer businesspeople American manufacturing businesspeople American technology chief executives Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area IBM employees University of Redlands alumni