Joseph F. Keithley

Biography

Joseph Faber Keithley (1915 - 1999) was the founder of Keithley Instruments Inc., and is considered one of the key people who built USA's biggest test and measurement companies after World War II, the others being William Hewlett and David Packard of Hewlett-Packard Co., Howard Vollum of Tektronix Inc., and John Fluke Sr. of John Fluke Manufacturing Co. Inc. He earned his Bachelor of Science in 1937 and his Master's of Science in 1938, both from MIT. From 1938 to 1940, he was a technical staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. In 1940, he became an engineer at the Naval Ordnance Lab in Washington, D.C.,
earning the U.S. Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 1945 for work on underwater mine firing devices and developing a patented station selecting system. After WWII, he moved to the Cleveland area, where he was employed by Massa Labs until opening his own business in 1946.

Keithley received an IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984, the John Fluke Sr. Memorial Award in 1985, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1992. He was the President of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society in 1973.