Viterbi: A Modest Man's Giant Accomplishments

Oct. 20, 2006

In 2000, at 65, Andrew Viterbi retired from Qualcomm, where he had been chief technical officer and vice chairman. Since then, he has devoted his time to many philanthropic programs, serving on 10 different boards (both professional and philanthropic) and running the Viterbi Group, a venture capital company whose leadership he shares with his daughter, Audrey Viterbi. His philanthropic works are focused in education, from kindergarten through graduate school, healthcare, and the arts. Viterbi certainly has earned the right to follow his passions after such an illustrious career, which includes:

BS and MS in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of technology in 1957
PhD from the University of Southern California in electrical engineering in 1962
Invented the Viterbi Algorithm, a decoding algorithm used in most digital wireless communication systems
Author of many scientific articles, including "Error bounds for convolutional codes and an asymptotically optimum decoding algorithm" in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (1967), which revealed the subsequently named Viterbi Algorithm
Fellow of the IEEE
Marconi Fellow
Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering
Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Member of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee
Member of the California Council on Science and Technology
Chair of the Computer and Information Sciences Section of the National Academy of Sciences
Professor of electrical engineering at UCLA, UCSD, and USC
C-founder of Linkabit Corp. with Irwin Jacobs and Leonard Kleinrock in 1968
C-founder of Qualcomm Inc. with Irwin Jacobs in 1985
President of the Viterbi Group since 2000.
Donated $52 million tthe University of Southern California School of Engineering.
Recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering
Recipient of the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Award
Recipient of the Claude Shannon Award
Recipient of the Christopher Columbus Medal and other international awards
Trustee of the Scripps Research Institute
Trustee of the Mathematical Science Research Institute

About the Author

Doris Kilbane

Doris Kilbane is a contributing editor to Supply Chain Technology News, Logistics Today, and Operations and Technology magazines, as well as a freelance writer for Automatic Identification Manufacturers (AIM) association and various business software and technology companies. Previously, she was the managing editor of Automatic I.D. News, now Frontline Solutions, for 10 years. Presently, she is also interim executive director for a volunteer program helping senior citizens called Faith in Action Medina County Caregivers.