George Heller - The Most Interesting Man In The Room

Summer is over and I guess it's time to start posting again.  For some reason I tend to go silent on the blog from July to October.  I'm not exactly sure why since I actually had this post written and ready to go back in June!

Just before summer I headed to Menlo Park to photograph George Heller for Technology Review magazine and I have to say he was one of the most interesting people I've ever met.  As a tech geek myself he was particularly interesting because he was involved in the very beginnings of the computer industry.  He was decades ahead of most others when it came to computer graphics and computer education.  But it's his entire story from surviving the Holocaust to a becoming a student at MIT to his devotion to teaching children that really makes him interesting.  And, at 86 years old he's still a bit of a bad ass with his weekly climbs to the top of the climbing wall at the Palo Alto YMCA.

After the shoot George was more than happy to show me all the old technology artifacts he still had in his home office.  I actually think I spent twice as long listening to him talk about his collection than I did photographing him.  To some it may have been torture but I really enjoyed myself.

Here is a link to the full Technology Review article.  His story is fascinating and I recommend checking it out.

Here's some iPhone video of George showing me 8-Bits of memory and a core processor from the 1950's:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OnO3U5EThA