Mark Dean was born on March 2rd 1957 in Jefferson City, Tennessee, United States. He is a son to James Dean and Barbra Dean. Since he was young, Mark developed an interest in mathematics and sciences. He was a smart kid and this ran across the family; his father was a worked as an administrator at the Dam of Tennessee Valley Authority while the grandfather worked as a principal in a high school. Just like Mark, his father’s interest in engineering and solving Dam crisis was traced back when he was a youth; thus found in their bloodstreams. Mark, as one of the countable African American kids that schooled in Jefferson City High School, he excelled in both academics and athletics. 1 He continuously endured questions from the white children who wondered whether he was truly a black because African Americans were not supposed to be as smart as he was. As a young boy who loved to repair, Mark together with his father made the first tractor from a scratch. He continues to excel and stand out in the school even while in college. Later, in 1979, he was at the topmost of his graduating class receiving a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering from the Tennessee University. Three years later, he graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering and later earned a doctorate degree in electronic engineering from the University of Stanford in 1992.
Marriage . He married Pauline Bacon but had no children together.
Career
Mark’s great dream was that he would work for the company that would make the first computer in the world. Dean joined IBM in 1980 to work as an engineer. However, he did not take too long to make an impact in the company. He led the formation of the team that created the IBM PC/AT which was the first official home and office processer as a chief engineer. This very first Personal Computer in the International Business Machines was made from the knowledge learned from the IBM colleagues in 1982, two years after joining the company. Two years later, the firm introduced the 286-AT which were made based on the early model of the company known as the Acorn. It was the first computer that was incorporated in both businesses and homes thus revolutionizing the operations to the use of computers. Together with one of his colleagues Dennis Moeller, they created the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) system bus. 2 This was the constituent that was developed to allow the connection of external devices such as the printer and modem to be linked to the personal computer. In addition, it would also be used with other applications like the computer mouse, stereo speakers, and even the networking system. As a result, the computer was seen as an affordable and practical component of a business office and even a home.
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His commitment and hard work at IBM, as well as his talents, made the company decide to take him to pursue a higher and polish his skills and competence. Therefore, he was sent to Stanford University in Palo Alto California where in 1992 he was awarded with a Ph.D. in electronic engineering. Meanwhile, he continued to rise in rank where he became the director of the architecture of the firm’ projects of the powerful personal computers both in Motorola and Apple companies. Besides, he became a fellow in 1995. He was the first African American to be named an IBM associates, which the utmost mechanical honor was granted by the firm to its employees. From the 50 employees that had been considered fellows in IBM, he was the only Black American in the group thus becoming the first person of color to become a fellow. At the same time, he was endorsed to the rank of the vice president for the system development and presentation for the RS6000 workstation on the personal computer project. He owned three of the nine patents that were used in the PC. He later developed the 70 or 80 PS/2 models as well as the color visual aid adopter that the display of colors in the PC.
In 1997, he was made the executive of the Austin Research laboratory, Texas and also a manager of the Advanced Technology Development for the IBM Enterprise Server Group between 1997 and 2000. In 1999, under his governance, his group made several achievements including the trying of the first ever gigahertz CMOS microchip. The organization pronounced the achievement of the company in developing a 1000 megahertz chip, a processor that is aimed at introducing into the market within a period of five years. The new processor was said to be three times as effective as one in the market at the time. Thus processing a billion calculations within a second. This led to his appointment as a deputy president for the System Research at IBM’s Watson Research Center in Yorktown Height in New York in 2000 and his operations included building the company’s future electronic tablet with the size of a magazine. It was to execute all the tasks of the desktop from a hand. Nevertheless, it was supposed to be more advanced that it would be programmable to have the ability to recognize one’s handwriting as well as voice, stream the videos and audios as well as have access the wireless internet. He emphasized the enterprise’s storing approach and technology group as the vice president of the IBM Storage Technology Group. He later became the second in command in the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jon, California. Dean has published several papers in the IEEE Company Society Press, IBM Technical Disclosure, and Publications, as well as the MIT Press. He holds over 20 awards from the industry and academia, and 25 honors from IBM. Of the 30 patents owned by Dean, three are among the nine most fundamental used in developing a personal computer
Dean at the Forefront of Science
Besides the technology innovations and contributions of Dean in IBM, he also participated in the firm’s medical research, particularly one that dealt with creating a computer system that would mimic the biological characteristics of a human being. IBM committed $100 million to ensure the success of the project that aimed at generating a computer system by the name “Blue Gene”. This would become a descendant of the “Deep Blue”, the entity’s computer that had competed and won the International Chess champion, Garry Kasparov. The venture was quite an exciting one for Dean as it involved the development of a computer chip that would ensure the running of the system at a high speed. He even thought that it was a good opportunity that would somehow lead to the invention of the cure to terrible diseases such as Alzheimer and AIDS.
Dean’s Induction into the Hall of Fame
In 1997, together with his friend Dennis, Mark was instated into the National Inventor Hall of Fame of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He became the third African American to be included into such a highly elevated rank in America. The two were awarded for their efforts to achieve the design of the first group of computer. 3 They were responsible for establishing how the different parts of a computer could communicate with one another as well as how the electricity could run through the chips and get the personal computer working. He became the elected member of the National Academy of Engineers in 2001.
Rewards and Honors
Besides the 1977 honor for the development of the architecture of the first personal computer together with Dennis Moeller, he was also endowed as one of the fifty most significant African American in the industry of technology by the California African American Museum in 2000. Other endowments comprise the award of the distinguished engineer from the National Society of Black Engineers and the Black Engineer of the year by the Career Communication Group in 2000. Other prizes include the National Institute of Science Outstanding Scientist Award, the Member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering Award, and the Ronald H. Brown American Innovators Award in Washington, DC in 1977. As well, he was awarded with a medal of the Founder day by the University of Tennessee in 1999.
Bibliography
Gonzalez, Heather B., and Jeffrey J. Kuenzi. "Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education: A primer." Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2012.
Spangenburg, Ray, Diane Moser, and Douglas Long. African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention. Infobase Publishing, 2014.
Taborn, Tyrone D., and Lango Deen. "Race for the Gold." Changing the Face of Engineering: The African American Experience (2015): 256.
1 Spangenburg, Ray, Diane Moser, and Douglas Long. African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention. Infobase Publishing, 2014.
2 Gonzalez, Heather B., and Jeffrey J. Kuenzi. "Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education: A primer." Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2012.
3 Taborn, Tyrone D., and Lango Deen. "Race for the Gold." Changing the Face of Engineering: The African American Experience (2015): 256.
