Charles Geschke

Charles Matthew Geschke earned a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1972 and joined Xerox PARC in 1972, where he eventually directed the Imaging Sciences Laboratory. His expertise in programming languages and compiler design was essential to PostScript's development as a full programming language rather than a simple markup format. Geschke's management experience at PARC prepared him for the operational leadership role he would play at Adobe.

Charles Geschke co-founded Adobe with John Warnock in 1982, serving as the company's president and chief operating officer for most of its first two decades. While Warnock focused on technology vision, Geschke built Adobe's business operations, sales channels, and strategic partnerships. He negotiated the critical early relationship with Apple that made PostScript the standard for laser printing and established Adobe's licensing model that generated revenue from every PostScript-compatible printer sold worldwide. Geschke survived a traumatic kidnapping in May 1992, when two armed men abducted him from Adobe's parking lot and held him for four days before FBI agents freed him. He returned to work within weeks and continued leading Adobe's operations until his retirement as president in 2000. Geschke remained on Adobe's board until 2020 and shared the Turing Award with Warnock in 2023. He passed away on April 16, 2021, at age 81 in Los Altos, California.