Everything about David Packard totally explained
David Packard (
September 7,
1912 –
March 26,
1996) was a co-founder of
Hewlett-Packard. Born in
Pueblo, Colorado, he received his B.A. from
Stanford University in 1934. Afterwards he worked for the
General Electric Company in
Schenectady, New York.
In
1938, he returned from New York to Stanford, where he received a master's in
Electrical Engineering the following year. In the same year, he married Lucile Salter with whom he'd four children:
David, Nancy, Susan, and Julie. Lucile Salter died in
1987.
Hewlett-Packard
In
1939, he and
William Hewlett established
Hewlett Packard in
Packard's garage with an initial capital investment of $538. The company, where Packard proved to be an expert administrator and Hewlett provided many technical innovations, grew into the world's largest producer of
electronic testing and measurement devices. It also became a major producer of
calculators,
computers, and
laser and
ink jet printers. Packard mentions in his book
The HP Way that the name
Hewlett-Packard was determined on the flip of a coin: HP, rather than PH.
Packard served as Hewlett-Packard's
President from
1947 to
1964,
Chief Executive Officer and
Chairman of the Board from
1964 to
1968, and Chairman of the Board from
1972 to
1993. At the time of his death in 1996, Packard's stake in the company was worth more than $1 billion.
Political career
Upon entering office in
1969, President
Richard M. Nixon appointed Packard
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under
Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Packard served until 1971, when he resigned and returned to Hewlett-Packard the next year as Chairman of the Board. In the
1970s and
1980s Packard was a prominent advisor to the
White House on defense procurement and management.
Shortly before leaving the office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense in 1971, and shortly before the first components of the Watergate Investigation were publicized, Packard wrote the "Packard Memo" or "Employment of Military Resources in the Event of Civil Disturbances". This high-impact act essentially revoked a substantial part of the
1878 Posse Comitatus Act (which prevented use of the US military to act as a police force in a State of Emergency), providing for 'exceptions' to Posse Comitatus "to prevent loss of life or wanton destruction of property and to restore governmental functioning and public order when sudden and unexpected civil disturbances, disasters, or calamities seriously endanger life and property and disrupt normal governmental functions to such an extent that duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation" and "to protect Federal government functions when the need for protection exists". "Packard's directive (stated) that turning over law enforcement will 'normally' require a Presidential Executive Order, but that this requirement can be waived in 'cases of sudden and unexpected emergencies... which require that immediate military action be taken." (Lindorff, 1988) Packard's directive, in essence, reinstated the possibility of Martial Law in the United States, prohibited since 1878. "Martial law was defined in an integral Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) memo written in 1982... The memo, written by FEMA official John Brinkerhoff to agency director Louis Giuffrida, notes that martial law 'suspends all prior existing laws, functions, systems, and programs of civil government, replacing them... with a military system." (Lindorff, 1988).
Philanthropy
From the early 1980s onward until his death in 1996, Packard dedicated much of his time and money to
philanthropic projects. Prompted by their daughters Nancy and Julie, in
1978 Dave and Lucile Packard created the
Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation. The couple eventually donated $55 million to build the new aquarium, which opened in
1984 with Julie Packard as executive director. In 1987, Packard gave $13 million to create the
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and the Packard Foundation has since provided about 90% of the Institute's operating budget. For his philanthropic efforts, he was awarded the
United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award in
1982.
In 1964, the couple had founded the
David and Lucile Packard Foundation. In 1986, they donated $40 million towards building what became the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at
Stanford University; the new hospital opened in June 1991.
On his death, his will gave approximately $4 billion to the Packard Foundation, including large amounts of valuable
real property in
Los Altos Hills. All three Packard daughters sit on the Foundation's
board of trustees.
Honors
On December 6, 2006, California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted the Packard Family into the California Hall of Fame located at
The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts. California First Lady
Maria Shriver founded the California Hall of Fame "to honor Californians who dared to dream, and have become role models by inspiring new generations to imagine, invent, influence and create".
David Packard also had an
oil tanker named for him. The
David Packard, built in
1977, was operated for
Chevron, had a capacity, and was registered under the
Bahamian flag.
Further Information
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