William O. Baker: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:53, 15 November 2013

Biography

Born: 15 July 1915

Died: 31 October 2005

William Oliver Baker was president of At&T’s famous Bell Telephone Laboratories during its post-war golden years.

Baker was born in 1915 on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Quaker Neck, Maryland, destined for a life of science. Many years later, he would often tell that it was his mother’s efforts at scientific management of turkey husbandry that piqued his interest in science, but whatever the case, he quickly shot through the local one-room schoolhouse and was off to Washington College.

After then earning a PhD in Chemistry from Princeton University in 1939, Baker immediately took a position at Bell Labs, where he found that his true gift was for working with people rather than things. His considerable knack for organizing research, inspiring his colleagues, encouraging the cross-fertilization of ideas and keeping in perspective the big picture rapidly propelled Baker into the league of management, eventually to become president and then chairman. Under his purview, Bell Labs grew into one of the world’s premier industrial labs for basic and applied research in the physical sciences. Throughout these decades Bell Labs was a leader in the development of solid state and digital technologies, satellite communications and fiber optics.

Baker was not only a man of the lab-bench and the ledger; he also served as a scientific advisor to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan.

After such a successful career, Baker had the good fortune of retiring in 1980, for a few years later an anti-trust suit against AT&T broke up AT&T, into a number of separate units, thereby bringing to an end the incredibly prolific arrangement Baker had helped to build.

William O. Baker passed away on Holloween, 2005.

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 == Biography ==
-William O. Baker was president of At&T’s famous Bell Laboratories during its post-war golden years.
-Baker was born in 1915 on the shores of the Chesepeake Bay in Quaker Neck, Maryland, destined for a life of science.  Many years later, he would often tell that it was his mother’s efforts at scientific management of turkey husbandry that piqued his interest in science, but whatever the case, he quickly shot through the local one-room schoolhouse and was off to Washington College.
+<p>Born: 15 July 1915</p><p>Died: 31 October 2005</p>
-After then earning a PhD in Chemistry from Princeton University in 1939, Baker immediately took a position at Bell Labs, where he found that his true gift was for working with people rather than things.  His considerable knack for organizing research, inspiring his colleagues, encouraging the cross-fertilization of ideas and keeping in perspective the big picture propelled Baker quickly into the league of management, eventually to become president and then chairman.  Under his purview, Bell Labs grew into one of the world’s premier industrial labs for basic and applied research in the physical sciences.  Throughout these decades Bell Labs was a leader in the development of solid state and digital technologies, satellite communications and fiber optics.
-Baker was not only a man of the lab.  He also served as a scientific advisor to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan.
+William Oliver Baker was president of At&T’s famous [[Bell Labs|Bell Telephone Laboratories]] during its post-war golden years.
-After such a successful career, Baker had the good fortune of retiring in 1980, for a few years later an anti-trust suit against AT&T broke up Bell Labs into a number of separate units, thereby bringing to an end the incredibly prolific arrangement Baker had helped to build.
+Baker was born in 1915 on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Quaker Neck, Maryland, destined for a life of science.  Many years later, he would often tell that it was his mother’s efforts at scientific management of turkey husbandry that piqued his interest in science, but whatever the case, he quickly shot through the local one-room schoolhouse and was off to Washington College.
+After then earning a PhD in Chemistry from Princeton University in 1939, Baker immediately took a position at Bell Labs, where he found that his true gift was for working with people rather than things.  His considerable knack for organizing research, inspiring his colleagues, encouraging the cross-fertilization of ideas and keeping in perspective the big picture rapidly propelled Baker into the league of management, eventually to become president and then chairman.  Under his purview, Bell Labs grew into one of the world’s premier industrial labs for basic and applied research in the physical sciences.  Throughout these decades Bell Labs was a leader in the development of solid state and digital technologies, satellite communications and fiber optics.
+Baker was not only a man of the lab-bench and the ledger; he also served as a scientific advisor to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan.
+After such a successful career, Baker had the good fortune of retiring in 1980, for a few years later an anti-trust suit against AT&T broke up AT&T,  into a number of separate units, thereby bringing to an end the incredibly prolific arrangement Baker had helped to build.
 William O. Baker passed away on Holloween, 2005.
+== Further Reading ==
+To read William Baker's story in his own words, see [[IEEE History Center Book Publishing|Bell Labs Memoirs: Voices of Innovation]]
+[http://www.williamobaker.org/William O. Baker Memorial]
+{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker}}
+[[Category:Business,_management_&_industry]]
+[[Category:Management]]
+[[Category:Research_and_development_labs]]
+[[Category:Chemistry]]