You should thank Mark Dean every time you sit at your computer.

Because of this Jefferson City native, you can communicate with computer-based devices that connect you to information, entertainment, and other people -- especially equipment that has a color video display, keyboard, modem, scanner, printer, or ...

Mark was born in 1957, the son of a Tennessee Valley Authority supervisor who encouraged his son's tinkering. Mark couldn't help but learn: his grandfather, Eugene Peck, was principal of Nelson Merry school prior to desegregation and is remembered as one of Jefferson County's most-loved educators. One of Mark's direct ancestors, a slave of the pioneer Peck family, was the first preacher at Peck's Chapel, which evolved into First United Methodist Church of Jefferson City.

After excelling in both athletics and academics in high school, Mark went on to graduate top of his class at the University of Tennessee in 1979. Probably the most-successful alumnus of UT's Minority Engineering Program, Mark received a BS in Electrical Engineering from UT, an MSEE from Florida Atlantic University (1982), and a Ph.D. in EE from Stanford (1992).

Mark has been with IBM since 1980. In 1995, Mark became the first Black IBM Fellow, the highest level of technical excellence at the company. Mark is one of only 50 active Fellows among IBM's 200,000 employees.

Mark holds more than twenty U. S. Patents, including three of IBM's original nine PC patents. In 1997, Mark was inducted into the National Inventors' Hall of Fame, joining two other noted Black members: George Washington Carver and Dr. Percy Julian. In 1999, Mark made computer history again when he led the team that built a gigahertz (1000 MHz) chip that performed a billion calculations per second. This achievement broke through a threshold that allowed computers to become smaller and faster. Mark's always dreaming of the "next big thing" (actually smaller!) in computer hardware.

So why should you thank Mark Dean every time you sit at your computer? One of his most-important achievements was leading an IBM team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers. Yes, someone would have eventually come up with it. But, a genius with roots in Jefferson County did it first!

More technical information about his career and achievements can be found on Mark's personal Web site at IBM.