Richard Rhyde Rhodes

Richard Rhyde Rhodes was born in 1916 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Annie and Pilcher Rhodes, both English professors at The University of Alabama, and received his education in the Tuscaloosa public schools. He won twin bachelors degrees in philosophy and mathematics from the University of Alabama in 1940. By the end of 1942, he had also earned a master’s degree in mathematics.

Mr. Rhodes immediately embarked upon a military career in the Signal Corps of the United States Army as a captain. He emerged as a colonel at war’s end. He would continue an association with army as a consultant to the end of his life. Initially assigned to a secret signal corps development unit in suburban Washington, he was part of a team to develop an advanced digital communications concept with proved instrumental in decoding the German V2 rocket program at Peenemunde, Germany near the end of the war.

After the war, Colonel Rhodes continued his education at The California Institute of Technology were he received his PhD in mathematics in 1948. Upon graduation, he was to assist Robert Noyce who was to make several breakthroughs in the new science of semiconductors. The two men were later to team up with Gordon Moore and Andy Grove to found the Intel Corporation in 1968. Dr. Rhodes sold his interest in Intel in 1991 to pursue independent research. The cash sale of his interest resulted in Dr. Rhodes being named to the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans in 1992.

Although spending most of his adult years in California, Dr. Rhodes always considered himself to be an Alabamian and returned to Tuscaloosa every year to visit his beloved University of Alabama. A lifelong bachelor, Dr. Rhodes had expressed his intention to endow the Tuscaloosa public school system with a bequest sufficient to satisfy its needs in perpetuity for research books on semiconductors.

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