ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 1996 TAG: 9603270050
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF.
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
David Packard, 83, one of the pioneers of Silicon Valley, died Tuesday.
The co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co. and perhaps the most innovative and influential business executive in Silicon Valley's history, died of complications from pneumonia.
A native of Pueblo, Colo., Packard founded Silicon Valley's largest and oldest public company with William Hewlett, his friend from their days at Stanford University, in the garage of his Palo Alto, Calif., home in 1939. From those origins, the company has grown to one that employs more than 100,000 people worldwide, has revenues of more than $31 billion and turns out products used by millions of consumers and businesses.
Packard advocated a corporate culture in which innovative thinking was embraced and employees were encouraged to challenge their bosses. It was a style copied by companies as diverse as Apple Computer, Silicon Graphics and Tandem Computers.
The founders of both Apple and Tandem had worked at Hewlett-Packard. The management style was chronicled by Packard in a book released last year called ``The HP Way.''
A survey of 54 chief executives by the Wall Street Journal in 1989 named Packard the most respected living American business executive. Some who knew him well said he may have been the best executive ever.
``David Packard had absolutely superb business judgment, and he was always willing to listen,'' said Tom Perkins, general partner of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a San Francisco venture capital firm.
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of Packardby CNB