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Inventor of Daisywheel’s Spin on Life

Scientist and businessman David SenLin Lee is CEO of three communications companies in three cities and also serves as a regent of the University of California.

Silicon Valley leader chosen as an “Outstanding Scientist and Engineer”

By Gerrye Wong

At a time when most men are looking forward to retiring on social security, David Lee is still enjoying being CEO of three companies: eOn Communications in Atlanta, Cidco Communications in Memphis and Cortelco in Mountain View, Calif. With a glint in his eye and a happy smile, he admits he still is having fun working with young people and enjoys the challenge of building a business into something of which he can be proud. A true indication of his enjoyment working with the budding generation of high-tech professionals is his involvement in ten other companies, sharing his expertise and advice. Half his life is spent on airplanes traveling to his companies’ headquarters across the nation, as well as venturing overseas to his other projects.

Born in Beijing, China, where he lived until he was 13, David then moved from one side of the globe to the other. With the onset of the Communist takeover of China, David’s father, who was a high-ranking government official in charge of Beijing’s transportation systems, moved his family first to Korea, then Hong Kong, next to Taiwan and settled finally in Argentina.

In 1956, at his father’s urging to take up engineering, David chose to pursue an M.E. (mechanical engineering) degree because — he laughs when recalling why — he thought it was the closest in spelling (M.E.) to something he liked, which in high school was math. He had no idea what the subject entailed, and in retrospect, admits he should have studied electrical engineering instead. However, with $600 in his pocket and one small suitcase, he remembers feeling very adventurous coming to America on a student visa, getting his B.S. at Montana State University, M.S. at North Dakota State and his Ph.D. at Ohio State. Throughout those years, this proud, diligent young student supported himself through school working at such odd jobs as fighting fires in the Forest Service, laboring summers in a lumber yard, and working in dorm kitchens for free room and board.

The thought of asking his father for funds to support him never occurred to him, and he was always confident he could support himself through college while his family, who were running a restaurant at the time, remained in Argentina.

“I knew what I wanted, and I was willing to work hard to get it,” he said. “In those days, none of us questioned or felt the hardship of going to school and working at the same time. I guess all of us were poor students so no one felt sorry for himself.”

Following a work stint with NCR in Dayton, Ohio, the young Lee came to California in search of new work challenges and, Lee admits, to ultimately meet a nice Chinese girl to settle down with. He did just that, meeting his wife Cecilia. The Lee family has since grown to include son Eric, a J. Crew product manager, daughter Gloria, a corporate lawyer, and son Randy, a business development manager for IAsiaWork.

At Diablo Systems, Lee was manager of Printer Engineering where he led the team that perfected the daisywheel printer. He ultimately co-founded Qume Corporation in 1973 and served as executive vice president until it was acquired by ITT Corp. in 1978. Following the acquisition, he held the positions of exec. v.p. of ITT Qume until 1981 and president through 1983. For the next two years he served as a vice president of ITT and as group executive and chairman of its Business Information Systems Group. In 1985, he became president of Data Technology Corp. and in 1988, DTC bought Qume and merged both companies.

Looking back, his proudest achievement was building Qume, from his simple idea of the daisywheel to its becoming the largest printer company in the world. The daisywheel was used in typewriters and word processors worldwide. He recalls that even IBM bought from them in the beginning. Seeing the evolution of an idea to its successful realization, and then its ultimate rise in the market place to the top, is an achievement one will never forget, he admits proudly.

Lee has received numerous awards for his contributions, not only to high technology but to local communities, as well. Among them, he received the Asian/Pacific American Heritage Award from President Bush in 1992, the Harvard Business School Assoc. of Northern California’s Business Entrepreneur Award and the Albert Einstein Technology Medal for Entrepreneurship, which he received in Israel.

He is currently a regent of the University of California, and was advisor to both Presidents Bush and Clinton through the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiation, and additionally to Governor Pete Wilson through the California Economic Development Corporation (CalEDC). He was a founder and chairman of such Asian American organizations as the Chinese Institute of Engineers, Asian American Manufacturer’s Association and Monte Jade Science and Technology Association. Lee is never inactive, from breakfast to late-night meetings with many associates with whom he shares his energies and ideas willingly. When asked how he fits in all that he does, he replied that he brings a briefcase full of reading materials he has never gotten to during the day onto a redeye plane ride, in order to get in his reading and sleeping so he doesn’t waste those hours in the sky. As a result, he is fresh and informed as soon as he arrives at his destination.

Holding an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Montana State University, Lee currently serves on the Board of Directors for ACT Manufacturing Inc., ESS Technology Inc., Linear Technology Corporation, Accela Inc., Daily Wellness Co., Telmax Communications, and Pacific International Center for High Technology Research.

When asked about the Daily Wellness Company, because it didn’t seem to fit into the engineering or high tech companies with which he works, he laughed, saying “Well, I am getting older, so I need to think about good health too. This company is taking the ingredients of Chinese herbal remedies, testing them through the high standards of Western medicine in our laboratories, and will manufacture products following thorough research and development.”