INVENTOR of the MONTH

Mark Dean: Computer Genius

You can view images on your computer monitor that you’ve down loaded from your scanner. At the same time you can listen to your favorite CD through a great set of JBL speakers that are plugged into your computer. Then exit from the scanned image, continue to play the CD while manipulating and printing an EXCEL spread sheet. These simultaneous actions are possible because Mark Dean lead the team that invented the ISA bus control. The bus control facilitates the communication of peripheral devices on your office or home computer. Dean also holds three of the original nine patents that all personal computers are based on.

Mark Dean is currently IBM’s Vice President of Systems and an IBM Fellow. He holds 27 patents in the field of computer engineering and has published 40 papers. Dean earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee in 1979, a MS in Electrical Engineering from Florida Atlantic University in 1982, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1992. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1997.

Dean was born in Jefferson City, TN on March 2, 1957. His father was a supervisor at the Tennessee Valley Authority. Mark was a very intelligent child. While in elementary school a white classmate asked if he were really Black because he was so smart. Dean says that there are still a lot of people that have a limited view of what black people can do. According to him “A lot of kids growing up today aren’t told that you can be whatever you want to be. There may be obstacles, but there are no limits”.

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