Walter B. Hewlett

Background

Walter B. Hewlett was born on June 23, 1944, in Washington, District of Columbia, United States. He was the son of William Redington Hewlett and Flora Lamson Hewlett, and the eldest of their five children. His parents married in 1939, the same year his father co-founded Hewlett-Packard with David Packard.

The Hewlett-Packard partnership was formed in Palo Alto, California, and grew into a major electronics and computing company over the following decades. The family's Palo Alto base placed it within the electronics industry that developed around Stanford University, where Hewlett later studied and taught.

In 1966 his parents and their eldest son established a charitable foundation that was known for its first decade as The W. R. Hewlett Foundation. After Flora Hewlett died in 1977, the organization was renamed The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in her memory.

Education

Hewlett received an A.B. in physics from Harvard University in 1966. Harvard, founded in 1636 in Massachusetts, is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. He later competed in track and field at Harvard, a career that earned him induction into the university's athletic hall of fame.

He continued his graduate education at Stanford University, which was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford near Palo Alto, California. He received a master's degree in engineering in 1968, a master's degree in operations research in 1973, and a doctorate in music in 1980. Operations research developed during the Second World War as a method of applying mathematical analysis to military and industrial problems.

His training in engineering and music later informed his work at the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities, which he founded at Stanford. He has described how his interest in computers merged with his passion for music in that center.

Career

Hewlett's public and professional life began with the philanthropic foundation his parents established. In 1966, at age 22, he was a founding board member of the foundation, and he later served as its chairman. He held the chairmanship from 1994 until 2014, a period in which the foundation grew into one of the largest private grantmaking foundations in the United States.

In 1984 he founded the Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities, which he has directed since. The center operated independently in Menlo Park, California, until 1996, when it moved to the Braun Music Center on the Stanford campus. Its work centered on building large databases of musical and textual materials for research, teaching, and performance, and it offered graduate courses from 1994.

Hewlett also pursued a corporate career alongside his academic and philanthropic work. When his father retired from the board of Hewlett-Packard in 1987, Walter took his place, and he served as a director of the company until 2002. In 1994 he participated in forming the Vermont Telephone Company in Springfield, Vermont, and he later became its chairman. He became a director of Agilent Technologies, an HP spin-off, in 1999.

His university service included membership on advisory bodies at Stanford and election to Harvard's Board of Overseers in 1997, which he served on until 2003. He was elected to Stanford's Board of Trustees in April 2003 and served until 2008. At Stanford he was also a consulting professor in the music department. In 2000 and 2001 he served as honorary co-chair of the Think Again fundraising tour.

Achievements

• Directed the center's transcription of works by J. S. Bach and other classical composers into computer databases for use by teachers, performers, and researchers.

• Co-edited the Computing in Musicology series with Eleanor Selfridge-Field and co-chaired the International Musicological Society's Study Group on Musical Data and Computer Applications.

Works

More photos

• anthology

  • The Virtual Score: Representation, Retrieval, Restoration

    (Edited with Eleanor Selfridge-Field as volume 12 of the C...)

    2001
  • Melodic Similarity: Concepts, Procedures, and Applications

    (Edited with Eleanor Selfridge-Field and published by MIT ...)

    1998

• article

  • Computing in musicology, 1966–91

    (Article written with Eleanor Selfridge-Field and publishe...)

• book

  • Music Analysis East and West

    (Published with Eleanor Selfridge-Field as part of the Com...)

    2006

  • Tonal Theory for the Digital Age

    (Published in the Computing in Musicology series with Elea...)

    2008

Membership

Hewlett is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a learned society founded in 1780 to recognize distinguished scholarship and to address questions of public concern. He also serves on the Academy Trust. His Stanford service included membership of the Humanities and Science Council, the advisory council of Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences, which advises on the work of the school and its programs.

He also served on several Stanford research and advisory bodies. The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research is a university center for economic study and policy analysis, and Hewlett served on its advisory board. The Center for the Study of Language and Information is a Stanford research center that studies language, information, and their computational aspects, and he was a former member of its advisory board. He chaired the Stanford Library and Information Technology Advisory Council from 1996 to 1998.

His board service extended to nonprofit organizations beyond Stanford. He is a director of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research organization focused on state policy issues. He has also served on the board of the Packard Humanities Institute, a philanthropic organization supporting the humanities and cultural initiatives, and as a trustee of the Stanford Theatre Foundation, which supports the historic Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto. He is a director of the Flora Family Foundation, which was established in 2005 and bears his mother's name.

• Fellow; member of the Academy Trust

  American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

• Member

  Humanities and Science Council Stanford University , United States

  1990

• Advisory board member

  Institute for Economic Policy Research , United States

  1999

• Member

  Libraries and Academic Information Resources Advisory Council , United States

  1992 - 2000

• Chairman

  Stanford Library and Information Technology Advisory Council , United States

  1996 - 1998

• Former advisory board member

  Center for Study of Language and Information , United States

• Member

  Harvard University Board of Overseers , United States

  1997 - 2003

• Trustee

  Stanford University Board of Trustees , United States

  2003 - 2008

• Director and trustee

  Packard Humanities Institute , United States

• Director

  Public Policy Institute of California , United States

  1998

• Trustee

  Stanford Theatre Foundation , United States

• Director

  Flora Family Foundation , United States

  2005

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Michel Guite, a friend and business partner who met Hewlett when both were graduate students at Stanford University, said that Hewlett had been very rigorous about not discussing the affairs of HP or Agilent.

Interests

• Hewlett competed in track and field as a student at Harvard University, and his athletic career there led to induction into the university's athletic hall of fame.

Connections

Hewlett is the son of William R. Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, and Flora Lamson Hewlett, who died in 1977. The couple's five children included Eleanor Hewlett Gimon and Mary Hewlett Jaffe, who joined the board of the foundation their parents established. Walter Hewlett was the eldest son, and he served as a founding board member when the foundation was formed in 1966.

After his father's death in 2001, Hewlett served as co-executor of the estate of William R. Hewlett and as a trustee of the William R. Hewlett Revocable Trust. He has also served as a trustee of the Packard Humanities Institute, an organization with which the family's philanthropic work has been connected.

Hewlett is married to Esther, and in a 2002 profile they were described as living in Palo Alto, California, with their three children.

Father:

William R. Hewlett

Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard with David Packard, and with his wife Flora founder of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in 1966.

Mother:

Flora Lamson Hewlett

Co-founder with her husband of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she served on the board until her death in 1977.

Wife:

Esther

Sister:

Eleanor Hewlett Gimon

Joined the board of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation together with Mary Hewlett Jaffe.

Sister:

Mary Hewlett Jaffe

Joined the board of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation together with Eleanor Hewlett Gimon.

References

• Walter Hewlett: An Oral History Oral history in which Hewlett discusses the origins of the Center for Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities, his service on Stanford and Harvard governing boards, and the history of the Hewlett Foundation.
• Walter Hewlett joins Board of Trustees Stanford University News Service announcement of Hewlett's election to the university's Board of Trustees, summarizing his foundation, university, and corporate affiliations.
  2003
• Foundations: A Q&A with Walter Hewlett Foundation interview in which Hewlett describes his education, his service on the foundation's board since 1966, and his university and corporate board roles.
• The Hewlett Family and Foundation History Foundation history describing Hewlett's role as a founding board member and his later service as chair of the board.
• Walter B. Hewlett Definitive Schedule 14A Shareholder proxy filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that includes a biographical sketch of Hewlett's foundation, Hewlett-Packard, and Stanford-related roles.
  2002
• In the Spotlight: The HP-Compaq Deal, Parents' Values Inspire Hewletts' Opposition San Francisco Chronicle profile of Hewlett and his family, covering his board service at Hewlett-Packard, his philanthropic role, and his opposition to the HP-Compaq merger.