John V. Roach

John Vinson Roach II was born on November 22, 1938, in Stamford, Texas, and moved to Fort Worth at the age of four.[4] His mother, Agnes Margaret Roach nee Handon, was a nurse and his father owned a grocery store in Fort Worth.[1]

Roach studied physics and mathematics at Texas Christian University and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1961.[5] After working for two years at the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii, he returned to the university and earned a master’s in business administration in 1965. He also started experimenting with mainframes in college.[1]

In 1967, he joined the Tandy Corporation, a conglomerate that owned Radioshack, as a data processing manager.[6] In the following years, he played a key role in the company’s decision to venture into the budding personal computer market.

In January 1977, he presented the original TRS-80 prototype to Tandy’s CEO Charles Tandy and Radioshack’s president Lewis Kornfeld. At just under $600,[7] the TRS-80 quickly became the best-selling personal computer on the market.[8] To write the software code for the TRS-80, Tandy hired eventual Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

Roach became RadioShack’s executive vice president in 1978.[9] He was appointed chief operating officer in 1980.

In 1983, he was named chief executive and chairman of Tandy, two positions he held until he retired in 1999.[1]

In the 1990s, Roach also served as chairman of Texas Christian University’s board of trustees.[5] In this role, he helped to double the university’s endowment to more than $1 billion and built a technology center. In 2007, the John V. Roach Honors College was endowed in his honor at Texas Christian University.[1]