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IBM Almaden Research Center
Accomplished IBM Researcher Jim Eaton Passes Away September 1, 2004
James H. Eaton
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James H. (Jim) Eaton, a greatly admired IBM researcher who crafted a distinguished and varied 40-year career of creating and managing innovation on both coasts, died Sept. 1. He was 70.
Insatiably curious and driven to solve problems, Eaton rose quickly through the ranks of IBM's technical management. But his greatest satisfaction was doing hands-on research. Over the past 15 years, he pioneered technologies that have greatly improved the performance of magnetic tape data storage products. Early in his career, such diverse technologies as supermarket scanners and the electrical power grid benefited from his attention.
While personally calm and perceptive, Eaton was technically brilliant and aggressive. His achievements could have filled three productive careers, but Eaton garnered them all with a quiet confidence and self-assurance, despite having for 30 years an ailment that gradually but relentlessly robbed him of his physical vitality. Throughout his career, Eaton was also a thoughtful manager and a generous mentor to those around him. He was inspiring to all who knew him.
"Jim made enormous contributions to IBM's technology and products and served as the finest example of intellect, perseverance and courage," said Wayne Imaino, manager of tape storage technology and Eaton's most recent manager at Almaden. "He will be greatly missed."
“Jim's combination of talents and brilliance give him a unique place in my book," said Barry Schechtman, a retired IBM researcher and manager who was a colleague of Eaton's in various capacities over four decades. "He was so capable of dealing with technology and its management at many different levels, and he was committed to and passionate about whatever he took on. Jim combined his brilliance with a deep-rooted integrity, so you always knew where he stood on an issue."
Eaton was born in Woodland, Calif., near Sacramento. His family had a farm and a water-well drilling business. Eaton spent time at Cal Poly and Oregon State universities before entering the University of California-Berkeley. He interrupted his undergraduate studies to serve in the U.S. Army, where he worked with radar at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. After meeting his wife, Glynda Williams, Eaton returned to the University of California-Berkeley with tremendous interest and motivation. He was graduated magna cum laude in 1958 and went on to study control and systems theory in graduate school under Lotfi Zadeh, the father of fuzzy logic. He earned his masters and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering in 1960 and 1962, respectively.
After two years as an assistant professor at Cal, Eaton was recruited to join IBM's San Jose Research Laboratory in 1964 as a manager. During his first six years, the size of his group quadrupled to 60 people as they made significant contributions to such diverse topics as magneto-optical data storage, holography and computer traffic control. Eaton was asked to serve on the New York commission that recommended computerized control improvements to the Northeastern electric power grid after the unprecedented blackout of Nov. 9-10, 1965.
Named director of Technical Planning for all of IBM Research in 1971, Eaton moved to the division headquarters in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. A year later, he was named director of Applied Research, a 300-person group with projects in semiconductors, magnetic recording, displays, printers, lasers and advanced computing technologies.
In 1975, Eaton moved to a product division as director of IBM's large computing systems development laboratory in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. A year later he was named director of the semiconductor and packaging development laboratory in East Fishkill, N.Y. Then he moved to corporate headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., directing from 1979-1983 IBM's Corporate Technical Committee, which advised IBM's senior management on the adequacy of its technical programs.
In the mid-1970s, Eaton was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Wishing to stay productive and involved, but also to reduce his travel requirements and the stress that can trigger MS symptoms, Eaton returned to the San Jose lab in 1983.
"He loved coming back to the lab," said his son Robert, a materials scientist who was a hard-disk drive (HDD) researcher at IBM Almaden from 1984-1995. "He loved being close to technology and solving problems."
One problem that needed solving when he returned was accelerating the use of Research's HDD achievements by its only customer at the time, IBM's Storage Products Division. For about three years, Eaton directed Almaden’s first "joint program" with a product division, the Magnetic Recording Institute. He was instrumental in the 500-megabit and 1-gigabit hard-disk-drive data-density demonstrations that revitalized the entire industry’s view of the future of that technology. MRI was so successful that its form was soon replicated with the other major product divisions, a move that revitalized innovation in IBM's products.
In 1987, Eaton resumed full-time research and soon served on a task force examining the future viability of magnetic tape as a data storage medium. Eaton's ideas would invigorate IBM's tape technologies. Eaton started a research group to leverage HDD advances to achieve similar data density increases in tape. He didn't think tape had to hold just one percent of the data that disks stored. His leadership quickly led to technologies used in IBM's successful Magstar family of tape storage products.
Eaton retired in 1993 and the next year was named a Distinguished Alumnus of UC-Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. But he couldn't stay away very long from his quest to continue advancing the state of the art in tape technology. Soon he was guiding a university/industry collaboration in advanced tape technology that had been organized by the National Storage Industry Consortium. But Eaton wanted to get back into the lab, so he returned to Almaden in 1996 as a supplemental employee.
Eaton then led the design and development of a number of new technologies that enabled the creation of a new and advanced magnetic tape standard -- Linear Tape Open. Most notable were optimized tape paths with grooved capstan rollers that reduced side-to-side tape jitter that limited data density and also a flat read-write head that was not only cheaper to make but also performed much better. The roots of his notable flat-head design was a years-earlier father-son consultation regarding a way to test the reliability of high-data-density HDD read heads. In 2001, at age 67, Eaton was rehired as a fulltime employee, and soon thereafter received patent, division and corporate awards in recognition of the value of his tape innovations. He was also named an IBM Master Inventor.
"My dad really liked to solve problems," Rob said. "It seemed like he could look at just about any problem and quickly write out the differential equations that would solve it. And he liked to build things. Even when he was running the product development labs, he would have machine tools at home so he could make things that would help his engineers find solutions faster.
"Sometimes, away from IBM," Rob added, "he would also help his brothers analyze some aspects of their well-drilling business. He and his oldest brother, Jerry, a noted geologist and pioneer in monitoring earthquakes and volcanoes, would often have long discussions about improving earthquake prediction instrumentation and analysis."
Eaton is survived by his wife, Glynda; children Suzanne Eaton of Dresden, Germany; Robert Eaton of San Jose and Julie Broaddus of Broad Run, Va.; and eight grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, September 11, at the family's home in Morgan Hill. For driving directions, send an e-mail note to: eaton1988-service@yahoo.com.
As a lasting legacy, Eaton's family is setting up a memorial fund at UC-Berkeley. In lieu of flowers, they ask that contributions be sent to:
James H. Eaton Memorial Fund
c/o Ms. Kate Riley
EECS
Soda Hall – 383
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
(Note: UC requires that checks be made out to the “UC Regents” with "for the James H. Eaton Memorial Fund" written on the back.)
Related web links:
Eaton Drilling Co.
Lotfi Zadeh
bang-bang controls
The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965
http://blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1965.html
http://blackout.gmu.edu/archive/a_1965.html (archive)
Tape task force in 1988
Terabyte Tape demonstration
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17786.html
LTO (Linear Tape Open)
http://www.storage.ibm.com/tape/lto/index.html
Jerry Eaton (brother) - free registration required
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