Charles Geschke (1939–2021), known as Chuck, was an American 🏷️#computer-scientist and 🏷️#co-founder of 📝Adobe, which he started with 📝John Warnock in 1982. He helped create the 📝PostScript page description language and, later, the 📝PDF document format — two of the technologies that shaped modern publishing.
Geschke earned a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon and joined Xerox PARC, where he founded the Imaging Sciences Laboratory and directed the group in which Warnock worked. Frustrated that Xerox would not bring their printing technology to market, the two left to build Adobe. Geschke served as the company's president until 2000 and remained co-chairman of the board with Warnock until 2017. In 2009 the two founders received the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation for their contributions to the graphic arts and the desktop publishing industry.
Chuck was our co-founder and, for more than two decades, our president — the steady partner beside John Warnock through every chapter of our early history. The tools this library documents exist because he was willing to leave a research lab and bet on getting them into the world.