Dr. Mark Dean - Computer Pioneer who revolutionized the personal computer.

Mark Dean was part of the original team that created the IBM PC. Born and raised in Jefferson City, Tennessee, Dean was gifted both athletically and academically. He headed to IBM after receiving a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee, where he would end up spending more than 30 years. Amid his work, he also earned a master's degree from Florida Atlantic University and a doctorate from Stanford.?In the 1980s, IBM had a reputation for building big, enterprise mainframes. No one believed IBM could make a competitive PC. But that's exactly what "Project Chess" was tasked with creating.?Project Chess was a skunkworks project for creating a computer in under a year that changed the personal computing industry forever—opening it to innovators outside the walls of IBM. Mark holds three of the nine original patents that lead to the creation of the IBM Personal computer. The funniest thing about Mark Dean is that he originally wanted to work on building a PC because he wanted to play Pac Man faster. He also lead the team that designed the first 1 GHz processor and the ISA Bus which allowed multiple devices to be connected to a PC at the same time. Over time, Dean's work began to focus on improving the personal computer. He helped develop a color monitor for the PC, as well as other improvements. The IBM personal computer, released in 1981, began with nine patents for its technology, three of which belong specifically to Mark. In 1996, Dean's work was rewarded at IBM when he was made an IBM Fellow (the highest honor for excellence at the company). This achievement was more than just personal for Dean: he was the first African-American to be awarded with this honor. Only a year later, in 1997, Dean received two more major recognitions: the Black Engineer of the Year President's Award and an induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.??Over the course of his career, Dean had more than 20 patents registered for his innovation computer engineering work. He later climbed up the ranks at IBM as a Vice President overseeing the company’s San Jose, California, Almaden Research Center, as well as the chief technology officer for IBM Middle East and Africa. In 2001, he became a member of the National Academy of Engineers.??

"I ignored the people attempting to block my progress and had no limits to who I talked to and in sharing my opinion," Dean said when we asked how he dealt with issues around racism (which includes both the subtle, systemic type of racism, and the more obvious form). "I also was able to demonstrate my ideas to a point where it was hard to argue their viability. It took a lot of work and sacrifice. But I was confident and believed I had some good ideas. Fortunately, there were a few in the right leadership positions that agreed with my ideas."

Today Mark Dean is the John Fisher Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee. In 2018, he was named the interim dean of the university’s Tickle College of Engineering.