Bob Spinrad built his first computer in 1953 out of discarded telephone switching equipment. Playing with his creation sparked a life-long fascination with information technology and its effects on our lives. Spinrad worked as a Senior Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory before joining Xerox in 1968, where, over the years, he held various engineering, programming and research management positions. He last served as Vice President, Technology Strategy.

At Brookhaven, in the early 60's, Spinrad led a small group that pioneered the development of Laboratory Automation. His group originated most of the basic ideas and techniques for using on-line digital computers to run experiments, to take, analyze and display data, and to control the course of the experiment in response to the measurements just made.

In the mid 70's, Spinrad led Xerox's earliest engineering work in Office Automation. His Division prototyped the communicating word processors, laser printers and local area networks that preceded the corporation's first products. In the late 70's and early 80's he was director of Xerox PARC, the source of many of the world's major innovations in personal computing.

Spinrad is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He served on the Board of Directors of the California Council on Science and Technology through 2008. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the Pardee RAND Graduate School of Policy Analysis and the National Research Council's Policy and Global Affairs Division Committee and its Committee on the Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs.

In addition to other work for these organizations, Spinrad has also served in various advisory roles for Harvard, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, the Jet Propulsion Lab (Cal Tech), NASA Ames, EDUCOM, the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Research Council, the Council on Library and Information Resources, Livermore National Laboratory, the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Bell Labs, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Digital Pathways, Inc., The Information Society and the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology.

Spinrad holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and MS and BS degrees from Columbia. He is a licensed Professional Engineer (New York).

Spinrad and his wife, Verna, live in Palo Alto, California. They have two grown children.