Lore Harp McGovern

Lore Harp McGovern ( Lange-Hegermann, March 3, 1944) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist based in California. She co-founded Vector Graphic, one of the earliest personal computing companies, in 1976. She served as the company's CEO and president, took it public, and oversaw annual revenue of $36 million before she left the company in 1984.

Harp McGovern was born in Poland under German occupation and moved to the United States after high school. She has founded or run companies in diverse fields including health care, educational publishing, and high-tech, and is an investor in numerous start-up companies in Silicon Valley.

Early life, education and immigration Lore Lange-Hegermann was born in German-occupied Poland on March 3, 1944. She grew up in Bottrop, West Germany, in a partially bombed-out building with her parents and grandparents. Her grandfather was businessman and Weimar Republic politician . She attended a Catholic boarding school, learning English, French, and Latin, and graduated from a German high school.

Career Vector Graphic After attending law school for a year,

By 1977, Vector Graphic had designed the 1702 PROM board and the Vector 1, a full microcomputer using the Z80 microprocessor. Theirs was one of the earliest computer companies to consider aesthetics in design, producing computers with rounded edges available in multiple colors and coordinating the color of their capacitors with their memory boards. By 1981, the company's revenue had reached $36.2 million.

Harp divorced her husband in 1982 and married Patrick J. McGovern the same year. She relinquished her role as president and CEO of Vector Graphic. The company rapidly declined, experiencing setbacks due to poor managerial decisions, mistimed advertising, and the entrance of IBM to the market. She returned to her leadership role in 1983,

Philanthropic activities Harp McGovern and her husband Patrick co-founded the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT in 2000. Their donation of approximately $350 million was among the largest gifts to a university at the time.

Awards and honors Harp McGovern was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1983 by Women Business Owners of New York. The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco awarded her the Distinguished Immigrant Award. She has also served as the Chair Emerita of the Board of Associates of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.