John Couch

Who is John Couch?

John Couch is an American technology executive most closely associated with Apple, Inc. He currently serves as the company's Vice President of Education.

Couch holds an A.B. in Computer Science from Berkeley, 1969. He earned his Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1970. John spent an additional two years in the Computer Science PhD program. He left the program to work for Hewlett Packard as a software engineer. 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 titled "Compiler Construction: Theory and Practice". In 1978 John 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".