PALO ALTO, Calif. — William Hewlett, the shirt-sleeved engineer who co-founded Hewlett-Packard Co. in a garage in 1938 and pioneered both Silicon Valley and the computer age itself, died Friday. He was 87.
Hewlett, who suffered a stroke in 1993, died in his sleep at his Palo Alto home, HP spokesman Dave Berman said.
Hewlett started the company with his friend and partner, the late David Packard. As its engineering brain, Hewlett saw the company grow from a start-up that made "anything to bring in a nickel" to a $49 billion manufacturer of high-quality computers and scientific instruments.
Forbes magazine listed him as one of the wealthiest Americans, ranking him No. 26 last year with an estimated net worth of $9 billion.
But Hewlett ranked among his greatest accomplishments the HP management style that still serves as a model for other companies.
"I guess that's what I'm most proud of — the fact that we really created a way to work with employees, let them share in the profits and still keep control of it," Hewlett recalled when he retired as vice chairman in 1987. He was president and chief executive until the late 1970s.
Carly Fiorina, HP chairwoman, president and chief executive, hailed Hewlett as "a great and gentle man."
Despite his position and great wealth, Hewlett delighted in working on new products side-by-side with employees or playing penny-ante poker with them.
"He was an incredible person intellectually. He could listen to something and get the gist, the meat of it very quickly — even with Nobel Prize winners," James Treybig, the Tandem Computers Inc. founder who spent five years at HP in the late 1960s and early '70s, recalled in 1991. "Yet at the same time he had the ability to relate with people, so everyone would have respect for him. He wasn't a stand-alone president, aloof."
Hewlett also was a noted philanthropist, giving tens of millions of dollars to environmental, educational and humanitarian causes individually and through a large family foundation.
Apple Computer chief executive Steve Jobs — who also launched his trailblazing company with a friend in a Silicon Valley garage — said his life was forever changed one day in 1967 when he called Hewlett at home to ask for spare electronic components. Jobs, then 12, used the parts to build a frequency counter.
"What I learned that summer at Bill and Dave's company was the blueprint we used for Apple," Jobs said. "Today marks the final passing of their era, but their spirit lives on in every company in this valley."
Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, added: "Bill Hewlett inspired me and set a level that the current generation of technology executives can only aspire to."
William Reddington Hewlett was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1913 but grew up in California, where his father was a professor of medicine at Stanford University.
It was at Stanford that he met Packard, another engineering student. Both graduated in 1934, with Packard going to work for General Electric Co. in New York and Hewlett earning a master's degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A few years later, both were back in Palo Alto. With encouragement from Stanford engineering professor Frederick Terman — who is considered the father of Silicon Valley — Hewlett and Packard decided to start their own company with $538 in a rented garage that is now a historic landmark. HP bought the garage last year and has been using it in a marketing campaign.
Hewlett and Packard formalized their Depression-era partnership on New Year's Day 1939 with a coin toss to decide the company name.
"In the beginning, we did anything to bring in a nickel," Hewlett recalled in 1987. "We had a bowling lane foul line indicator. We had a thing that would make a urinal flush automatically as soon as a guy came in front of it. We had a shock machine to make people lose weight."
The company's first success was Hewlett's audio oscillator, a device to test sound equipment. Walt Disney bought eight for the movie "Fantasia."
The company grew quickly after World War II, during which Hewlett served in the Army Signal Corps. It later expanded from electronic and scientific instruments to calculators, computers and printers. It is now one of the nation's largest computer makers.
Hewlett and Packard shared basic beliefs about managing a company: disdain of strict hierarchy and formality, admiration for individual creativity and initiative, and trust in employees. Packard wrote down the company credo, which became known as the "HP Way."
The founders' beliefs helped HP produce new products and engendered loyalty among employees.
Hewlett stepped down as HP's president in 1977 and chief executive the following year. He remained vice chairman until 1987. Packard retired as chairman in 1993 and died in 1996 at age 83.
In 1985, President Reagan awarded Hewlett the National Medal of Science, America's highest scientific honor.
"The death of Hewlett basically brings down the curtain on the first generation of Silicon Valley," said Michael S. Malone, editor of Forbes ASAP magazine and a Silicon Valley historian. "He is the patron saint of engineers in Silicon Valley."
Hewlett is survived by his wife, Rosemary; five children from his first marriage; and five stepchildren from his second marriage. His first wife, Flora, died in 1977.