Joseph James Hackett, IBM Salesman Launched Punch Card Firm In '50s, 92
DGH
Joseph J. Hackett, of Chicago's [Illinois] Lincoln Park neighborhood,
died Wednesday, February 25, 2004, of complications from diabetes in
St. Joseph Hospital, at the age of 92.
Decades before computers were ubiquitous, Joseph James Hackett made
them his career.
In the 1950s, he was a salesman for IBM. Then, after a federal consent
decree forced competition on the computer giant, Mr. Hackett formed
his own computer punch-card company.
He later became a consultant to other companies, including a computer
products firm owned by his wife, Merilyn.
A third generation Chicagoan born on the South Side, Mr. Hackett
graduated from St. Ignatius College Prep and the University of
Chicago, where he earned a bachelor's degree in business
administration in 1942. The following year, he joined the Army and
became an officer in the Signal Intelligence Unit during World War II.
After the war, he returned to the University of Chicago, where in 1948
he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He then studied at the
University of Paris, Sorbonne, where he earned a "certificate de
mathematique," before being a statistical analyst for the U.S.
military in Heidelberg, Germany.
In 1949 he wrote to Merilyn McGurk, to whom he was introduced by his
sisters after the war, asking her to come to Europe and marry him. She
did.
The couple returned to the states in 1952, and they moved to the South
Side. Mr. Hackett joined IBM, where he worked until 1958, when he and
two other IBM employees established Office Electronics Inc. A year
later, Mr. Hackett started his own company, J.J. Hackett & Co., which
made tabulating cards, commonly called punch cards, that were once
essential to mainframe computers.
In 1962 J.J. Hackett & Co. filed a federal antitrust suit against IBM,
alleging it had violated the federal consent decree by withholding
technology useful to Mr. Hackett's company. He lost the suit but never
regretted filing it.
"Joe was a lifelong Democrat, but he admired Teddy Roosevelt very
deeply for his antitrust efforts," his wife said. "Big was not good,
as far as Joe was concerned. ... That's why he sued."
In 1977 Mr. Hackett sold his company, then called Hackett Corp., which
at one time employed about 250 people in seven cities. He later formed
the consulting firm Computer Algebra. He worked as a consultant until
the early 1990s.
"Joe was a true businessman," said Audrey Gallery, who arrived at IBM
about two years after Mr. Hackett and considered him a mentor and
friend. "He was honest. He was visionary. He was smart. And he was a
hard worker."
Mr. Hackett had a host of interests, including poetry, symphonies and
travel.
"Art, music and poetry were a part of our lives," said Joan Hackett,
one of three daughters. "He never received the Nobel Prize, but he was
really quite brilliant."
"He was forceful, but kind of on the reserved side. But a presence
nonetheless," his daughter Susan said.
DGH
Correction: He was 82, not 92.
J.