Roy Clay

Roy Lee Clay Sr. (August 22, 1929 – September 22, 2024) was an African American computer scientist and inventor. He was a founding member of the computer division at Hewlett-Packard, where he led the team that created the HP 2116A 16-bit minicomputer. He served as Chief Executive Officer of ROD-L Electronics, an electrical-safety test equipment manufacturer.

Early life and education Clay was born on August 22, 1929, in Kinloch, Missouri. During his summer holidays, he worked as a gardener in Ferguson, but was encouraged by the local police to leave the majority white town. Despite experiencing racism throughout his childhood, Clay's mother told him, "you will face racism the rest of your life, but don't ever let that be a reason why you don't succeed".

Clay attended Douglass High School, a segregated school, and eventually was awarded a scholarship to study mathematics at Saint Louis University (SLU).

After leaving LLNL, Clay worked at Control Data Corporation, where he created new Fortran compilers. In 1962, Clay moved to Palo Alto, California. He was director of the team who developed the HP 2116A, one of the company's first minicomputers. Clay stayed at HP into the 1970s, eventually rising to being the highest-ranking African-American member of staff. He recognized the need to test electrical products for safety, and left HP in 1971 to start his own business. ROD-L was the first producer of electrical safety test equipment to be certified by the UL. An early proponent of flex time, he allowed employees to set their own schedule outside of core hours, stating, "I decided that the hours of greatest communication were between 10 am and 2 pm. Therefore, I asked that everyone be in the office between those hours, to avoid having trouble with scheduling meetings."

In 2002, Clay was elected by the African American Museum and Library at Oakland as one of the most important African-Americans working in technology. In 2021, the city of St. Louis opened the Roy Clay Sr. Computer Lab in his honor.

Personal life Clay was born as the fourth child out of nine children in the family of Charles and Emma Jean Clay. He married Virginia Conners in 1957, and together they raised three sons: Roy Jr., Rodney, and Chris. After his wife died in 1995, Clay founded the Virginia Clay Annual Golf Classic. In addition, in 1992, he was a founding member of the Olympic Club Foundation. Clay published a memoir, Unstoppable: The Unlikely Story of a Silicon Valley Godfather, in July 2022. He died on September 22, 2024, at the age of 95.