Famous Weehawkenites: John Diebold

Famous Weehawkenites: John Diebold

WHC88269

According to an obituary published in the New York Times on 12/27/2005... John Diebold was a visionary thinker whose early and persistent promotion of computers and other far-reaching innovations helped shape industrial development in America and beyond. In 1952, at a time when computers weighed five tons, his book "Automation" described how programmable devices could change the day-to-day operations of all kinds of businesses. Even the book's title was novel: it introduced the modern-day meaning of a term that had previously applied only to the mechanical handling of automobile parts at the Ford Motor Company. Mr. Diebold (pronounced DEE-bold) made a career of recognizing relevant advances in technology and explaining them to the likes of A.T. & T., Boeing, Xerox and I.B.M. Through books, speeches and his international consulting firm, Mr. Diebold persuaded major corporations to automate their assembly lines, store their records electronically and install interoffice computer networks. In 1961 he and his firm, the Diebold Group, designed an electronic network to link account records at the Bowery Savings Bank in New York. Rather than being updated after hours, the records immediately reflected both deposits and withdrawals and were available to any teller. Customers could then bank at any branch and at any window. "Today's machines, even more than the devices of the industrial revolution, are creating a whole new environment for mankind and a whole new way of life," he told The New York Times in 1965. "Today's machines deal with the very core of human society - with information and its communication and use." Mr. Diebold came to believe that computers and other information technologies could reshape society, and he guided dozens of municipalities and foreign countries in using them to manage the budget (Venezuela), to compile government data (Indonesia) and to streamline public services like fire protection (Savannah, Ga.) and the distribution of welfare (California). He envisioned a utopia built on technological progress, complete with cars that diagnose their own problems and refrigerators that know to order groceries. He described his greatest hopes in 1987 in a series of published letters to his daughter Emma, then 2. By 2010, he wrote, defensive technologies will render nuclear weapons powerless and human tissue farms will grow replacement organs, while AIDS and heart disease will all but disappear. John Theurer Diebold (he later dropped the middle name) was born on June 8, 1926, in Weehawken, N.J., and received a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and a master's degree from Harvard Business School.

2005

OT

WHC88269

Weehawken, NJ [40.7663711,-74.02537149999999]