E. David Crockett

May 18,1936 – January 28, 2025

E. David Crockett, born May 18,1936, died on January 28, 2025, in Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, at the age of 88. He was born to Dr. Earl and Della Crockett in Boulder, CO, where he grew up. David was voted the Head Boy in  Boulder High School, after suffering as a child what would later be recognized as dyslexia, it was just a  condition with which he learned to deal. In 1952, Professor Earl Crockett took his wife and two youngest children to Germany for the school year while he taught servicemen for the University of Maryland Overseas Division. It was a life-expanding experience for the children. Back in Boulder, David attended a year of college at the University of Colorado before being called by the LDS Church on a mission to Germany in 1956, but Ann Hollenbeck had already met him, and touched his heart.

He served his mission earning kudos from his Mission President by establishing a training program in the German language for  new missionaries, and he was able to spend more time with his brother Bob, also in Germany but in the Air Force teaching Germans to fly jets. The brothers were very fond of each other. In 1958, David returned to the states to join his family, now settled in Provo, Utah where Earl had been hired as the Academic Vice President of Brigham Young University, later serving one year as Acting President. When Bob died unexpectedly at 29, it was very difficult for David, who even in his 80s, said he still missed Bob every day.

The year after his BYU graduation with a BSEE, IBM offered David a job in San Jose. As a budding computer systems specialist, E. David Crockett designed and developed the first acoustical coupled modem for data communications while at IBM. He received his MSEE from Stanford, attending under the Honors Cooperative program financed by IBM and his Ph.D. from the The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Computer and  Electrical Engineering with a Fellowship again from IBM.  While there, Mac Van Valkenburg, the author of David’s previous text  books, became a lifelong friend and mentor. Crockett tended to keep his friends forever.

During his time in Illinois, his first marriage to Barbara Allen begun in 1961, ended amiably, a few years after the birth of their son, Mark Allen Crockett in 1965.

In a very private ceremony in 1967, with only a stage lit in the lovely Stanford Chapel, David finally married Ann  Hollenbeck. The guests/witnesses being two parents and one sibling. But all his family and friends knew he had finally  married the love of his life. David and Ann spent 57 wonderful years together in mutual love and support.

After IBM, where he grew and developed in his work, he joined  Computer Signetics. He began in 1970, as Vice President of R&D, to later be made VP of manufacturing too. The startup was financed by some of the first venture capitalists. He learned that startups are both the most exciting thing in the world and the most painful. Work at  Memorex followed, developing high speed modems.

Crockett frequently brought engineers and others with him from one position, and/or one company to another. Likely part of his success lay in his knowledge of their abilities and their dedication to him as their leader. He was with Hewlett-Packard from 1972 -1980. At Hewlett-Packard, he was a pioneer in hardware and software development and in the principles and techniques for computer system performance evaluation. Beginning as R&D manager for the 2100 product line thus giving him an opportunity to design a new computer. Since recruiting new engineering talent was a high priority not to be delegated below R&D managers, he recruited at the three universities from which he had  graduated. He also taught a graduate course in Engineering/Computer Science at Stanford and lectured at other universities.

The Amigo Project 1975 – 1978: developing the HP 300, began with rave reviews until there were major technical changes at higher levels. It seemed that anyone who had ever worked for Crockett before was working for him now on this big project, until upper management began to lose interest. Many reasons were given for the demise of the Amigo HP 300, one was the decision by upper management in the  middle of the project to change the computer’s focus from a scientific to a commercial market necessitating both changes in the computer languages and the user interface. During Amigo, Crockett became interested in office design and purchased the Herman Miller Action Office line to supplement the office computers which would be coming for his own employees. Since the HP 300 never came, but since HP had already purchased the Action Office, he was asked to join the Herman Miller Board of Directors serving and collaborating there for 40 years. For the Crockett home, he and Ann purchased classic mid-century furniture designed by Scandinavians and sold by Herman Miller. His first major in architecture, before EE, was never quite left behind. The choice of an unusual but beautiful, hexagonal Japanese style house, as their home, is testament to that.

Computer Strategy Manager 1979-1980.
As Crockett became the Computer Strategy Manager reporting directly to Paul Ely, the Amigo team went to Intel, Silicon Graphics, Pyramid, Apple and many startups. Apple took 19 engineers from Amigo carrying many ideas which appeared later in Apple products, even appearing as late as 2017 in Apple laptops.  

The 1981-1985 DataQuest position was possibly David’s favorite job. He later said, he should have never left it. He had first been lured there by Dave Jorgensen, then trained by Dave Norman. Norman, an expert market analyst, wanted Crockett to replace him, and he knew just how to train him for the job, by taking him along on trips to show him the ropes. As a writer at the popular publication Upside printed, “…modern high-tech market researchers have become the high priest of high technology. They can influence the buying public’s perceptions of companies and [in] technology affect executive careers and change the stock market.” With David’s wide yet deep background in science and engineering, plus Norman’s training, it became the perfect job for Crockett. DataQuest at that time provided twelve service groups which they analyzed, these grew to twenty under Crockett. When he began there, DataQuest had 2,000 clients who relied on their analysts for critical information on high-technology industries. He was traveling all over the country, even the  world and being quoted frequently in national as well as local publications. But by now he had been specifically trained on how to be interviewed effectively by and for DataQuest. In 1982, now as the President of DataQuest, at the DataQuest Small Computer Industry Conference, Crockett told customers that the world was going to become only small “personal”  computers and giant file servers. As we now know it, they are called the “cloud,” but that part of his prediction took longer than expected.

On August 15, 1980, in Provo, UT he received the BYU Alumni Distinguished Service Award also addressing the Department of Engineering.

In January 1981 Thomas Whitney established the Whitney Education Foundation for public school in the reading and language arts. Ann Crockett, Whitney Education Foundation Director said “The key here is the teacher.” David gave her credit for her marvelous role in the advancement of education, and in her support of him in his work and her ability to accompany him on most of his Herman Miller and his international travel.

In the fall of 1985, he resigned from DataQuest to join Pyramid Technology Corporation, four of the key managers of Pyramid had worked for him at HP. Later he realized he had seen the opportunity but not the problems, and was maybe too eager to run a computer company at what appeared to be his last chance. He had loved DataQuest, but felt guilty that he liked it so much, feeling he should instead have been designing systems and managing a company building end-user products.

Barely at Pyramid for over a year, he was in essence ousted by the Venture Capitalists, but in his typical “can do” manner he therefore taught himself how to be a V.C. eventually forming a partnership called Aspen Ventures. His emphasis in this was especially how to educate the often inexperienced entrepreneurs in how to write business plans and run a business.  He was not pleased with their success rate, but it was not from his lack of constructive information or support.

In some ways, his greatest long-term success might have been in his ability to perform as a useful and effective board member for corporations, 10 of them public like A. C. Nielson, Businessland, and Herman Miller, and 20 of them private like DataQuest and Compuserve. He also served on several Professional Boards.

He enjoyed stimulating, and nurturing computer engineers. He wrote the university accreditation requirements for Computer Engineering, did accreditations in Electrical Education for General Motors Institute, Arizona University and helped San Jose State prepare for their upcoming accreditation visit, and that was just in 1983. He was likely inspired by the decades of accreditation work his father had performed before him.

Throughout his life, he always enjoyed music, especially opera, photography, finish carpentry, hiking, and bird watching. He collected wooden tops, and bronze Art Deco nudes. He and Ann shared many of the same interests. In later years, when he retired after seventy, he wrote much personal history.  His “Observing the 50 Year Bubble: Up Close and Personal (1951 to 9/11/2001)” has useful professional and biographical information. He attended two Crockett Reunions of the descendants of his parents in 2013 in Utah/Idaho and 2019 in San Francisco and Berkeley, CA.

He is survived by his dear wife of 57 years, Ann R. Crockett, of Los Altos Hills, CA; his sister, Margaret R. Crockett, of San Luis Obispo, CA, his son Mark A. Crockett (Judy) of Salt Lake City, UT, and his granddaughters Lauren Crockett, currently serving an LDS Mission in Brazil, and Rachel Crockett, college bound from Salt Lake City, UT. He was preceded in death by his brother Robert C. Comish, at twenty-nine; his sister Marian C. Brereton at fifty-nine; his father, Earl C. Crockett, at seventy-two; and his mother Della C. Crockett, at seventy-six.

No flowers please, but donations may be made in his honor to Stanford University for student scholarships. Condolences can be left on the website: https://www.endlesstributes.com/ under his name.