Jonathan Darrel Coker
Nancy Jackson has been working on completing the John Jackson, Jr. line and leaving no stone unturned. A few days ago, she overturned one stone and found a fascinating relative previously hidden–Jonathan Darrel Coker.
Nancy identified a potential candidate–Jonathan Coker–and wondered because of the same surname if Jonathan was related to Mary Kay Coker. Nancy and I have been communicating with Mary Kay as she was using DNA testing to show that her ancestor Randolph Jackson was the illegitimate son of Jacob Jay Jackson, son of John Jackson, Jr. When Nancy asked Mary Kay about Jonathan Coker, this was Mary Kay’s response:
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Hi, Nancy,
Jon is my brother. He had many patents (with others) that deal with hard disk drives when he worked for IBM, Hitachi, Mayo, and Western Digital. If you look at this list (Jonathan D. Coker Inventions, Patents and Patent Applications – Justia Patents Search), you can see them, but it’s all Greek to me. I didn’t get the STEM gene despite being the child of chemists and sister of two engineers. 😉
Here is a bio from when he worked for Hitachi (HGST):
“Jonathan Coker is a champion of innovative recording technologies that improve the performance, efficiency, and areal density of hard-disk drives (HDDs). As HGST’s Chief Architect for HDDs, Coker plays a leading role in HGST’s shingled and two-dimensional recording technology efforts. Coker was educated at Wheaton College (B.A., Liberal Arts and Engineering, 1983) and at the University of Minnesota (B.S.E.E., 1984; M.S.E.E, 2006; E.E. Ph.D., 2008). Coker began his career in 1984 at IBM, where he made key contributions to the development and integration of such industry firsts as thin-film disks, magnetoresistive heads, and partial-response, maximum-likelihood data channels. During 2001-7, Coker was a supervising researcher at the Mayo Clinic, working on advanced circuit architectures and implementations for medical and defense-related applications. Coker is a frequent guest lecturer at industry gatherings and seminars. He holds about 50 patents in the areas of magnetic recording, radar devices and medical applications. Jon has written 22 journal articles or conference papers.”
Mary Kay
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Jon and his wife Kay live in Rochester, MN.
Dan