John Cloud McPherson ’29

Mac died on Nov. 13, 1999. He prepared at Hotchkiss. At Princeton, he was Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. He won the Lyman Biddle Scholarship, the sophomore Mathematical Prize and the Wood Legacy Prize. His sports were crew and hockey. He was a member of Elm Club.

After graduation, he joined IBM, where he rose to director of engineering and v.p. of engineering. During WWII, he was IBM's contact for the US Army Ordinance Corps Ballistics Laboratory in Aberdeen, Md. He arranged for the building of the fastest ever relay calculator and served the government's specialized cryptographic needs.

He fought within his company for "electronics" in the business machines field and his efforts were highly successful. His last 10 years with IBM were spent as head of The Systems Research Institute in New York, and as a member of the Natl. Security Agency's Scientific Advisory Board. His final thrust within IBM was to promote his favorite programming language, APL. His most cherished award was the Kenneth E. Iverson Award for outstanding contributions to the development and application of APL.

In 1934, he married his Wells College May Queen, Kay Roberts, who predeceased him in 1991. He is survived by a son, J. Bruce, a daughter, Elizabeth McPherson Paxton, and three grandchildren. The class extends its deepest sympathy to the members of Mac’s family.