John Couch (American executive)

John Couch was Apple's First Vice President of Education and co-author of the book Rewiring Education.[1] He holds an A.B. in Computer Science from Berkeley, 1969. He earned his master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1970. John spent an additional two years in the Computer Science Ph.D. program. He left the program to work for Hewlett Packard as a software engineer. In 2000 he was honored as a Distinguish Alumnus and in 2010 John was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Philadelphia University for his innovative contributions to education.

At Hewlett Packard, John took on management roles at the same time teaching graduate courses at Cal State San Jose. He coauthored the textbook published by SRA (Science Research Associates) titled "Compiler Construction: Theory and Practice." In 1978 he was recruited by Steve Jobs as Director of New Products for Apple Computer, Inc. In early 1979 John was promoted to Vice President of Software. Like Steve, John was influenced by their visit to Xerox PARC and managed the initial graphical user interface for the Lisa system.

John was promoted to General Manager and Vice President of the newly created Lisa division, called "Personal Office Systems." [2] He ran the Lisa division through launch.

In the early years of Macintosh development, a Lisa was needed to compile software for the new machine. Bruce Horn tells a story in which he needed a Lisa for this purpose, and Steve Jobs directed him to just take one from John Couch's office when he was away. Horn did so, and even decades later "I still don't know to this day whether Steve had arranged this with John, or if John came back to the surprise of an empty desk."[3]

The truth being, at the time, the Macintosh was under development, and there were a limited number of Lisa machines available to develop Macintosh software. John felt it more important for the Macintosh developers to have use of the machine than for him to have one on his desk.

Couch left Apple in 1984 to take over a struggling Christian school in Solana Beach, CA.

Couch served as Executive in Residence for the Mayfield Fund. In 1997, he became CEO of biotechnology software maker DoubleTwist (then called Pangea Systems) and served in this capacity, and then as Chairman, until the company failed in 2002.[4] At this point he returned to Apple to fill the newly created role of Vice President of Education.[5] [6]

Couch in May 2018 released his book "Rewiring Education" with Jason Towne. [7] [8] [9] The book was a number one best seller in China [10] The same year Couch founded Eden Inspirations, a Christian ministry that works with Christian artists around the world with poetry and music. Artists such as Aaron Gillespie, Bethel Music, Lissy Lategan, and others have released music under it. Eden Inspirations has released three CDs titled "Songs Of The Night", "Songs Of Freedom", and "Songs of Wisdom" that are available now at the website www.edeninspirations.com [11] Couch in 2019 launched Eden Estate Wines. [12] The winery hosts tastings, tours, and more. https://edenestatewines.com

Couch is currently working on a new book titled "My Life at Apple and The Steve I Knew" which will be released soon. [13]