David T. Kearns


David Todd Kearns was an American businessman who was chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation and served as the first United States Deputy Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993.

Early life and education

Kearns was born and raised in Rochester, New York where he met his future wife, Shirley Virginia Cox. He earned Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Rochester in 1952, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon.

Career

Kearns entered United States Navy flight school and was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea aboard the USS Coral Sea as an airman. Starting in 1954, Kearns worked at IBM.

Xerox Corporation

In 1971, Kearns joined Xerox Corporation as vice president. He also served as head of U.S./Marketing and Service at Xerox in Rochester, New York, and later as vice president of foreign markets in Stamford, Connecticut. In 1977, he became Xerox president and COO, and was then promoted to CEO in 1982. In 1985, Kearns succeeded Charles Peter McColough as chairman of Xerox.

U.S. Department of Education

Kearns was nominated by President George H. W. Bush as United States Deputy Secretary of Education on March 22, 1991. The United States Senate confirmed him for the position on May 31, 1991.
Following the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, California, George H. W. Bush appointed Kearns as White House liaison to help resolve the conflict.

Later career

Kearns left the Department of Education on January 20, 1993. He later joined the faculty of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education where he taught for two years. Kearns has served on the board of trustees for the Ford Foundation, Time Warner, Dayton Hudson, and Ryder. He is also a former chairman of the National Urban League.
Kearns was Chairman of New American Schools, an organization dedicated to excellence in American schools. New American Schools has since merged with the American Institutes for Research.
The University of Rochester established the David T. Kearns Center for Leadership and Diversity in Science and Engineering to expand the pool of individuals who pursue undergraduate and graduate careers in the sciences and engineering.
Kearns published several books including: Winning the Brain Race: A Bold Plan to Make Our Schools Competitive, Prophets in the Dark: How Xerox Reinvented Itself and Beat Back the Japanese, A Legacy of Learning and Crossing the Bridge: Family, Business, Education, Cancer, and the Lessons Learned.
His tenure is often examined in discussions of Xerox’s difficulty in commercializing advanced technologies developed at Xerox PARC during the 1970s.
During Kearns’ leadership, Xerox made notable progress in stabilizing its core copier and document services business, particularly in response to increasing competition from Japanese manufacturers. He emphasized operational discipline, cost control, and quality improvement initiatives, including the adoption of benchmarking and total quality management practices. These efforts are widely credited with restoring Xerox’s competitiveness in its primary markets.
However, critics argue that under Kearns’ leadership, Xerox continued to struggle with translating its pioneering research into successful commercial products outside its traditional business model. Although Xerox PARC had developed foundational technologies such as the graphical user interface, Ethernet networking, and advanced personal computing concepts, Xerox failed to bring these innovations to market at scale. Decision-making structures, incentive systems, and strategic priorities remained closely aligned with the company’s established copier-centric revenue model.
Scholars and business analysts have suggested that Kearns viewed PARC primarily as a long-term research asset rather than a direct driver of near-term product innovation. As a result, commercialization efforts were often slow, fragmented, or deprioritized, allowing other firms—most notably Apple—to adapt and successfully market similar technologies. The organizational separation between PARC and Xerox’s corporate leadership further limited the integration of research outputs into mainstream product development.
In retrospect, Kearns’ tenure is frequently characterized as a period in which Xerox successfully defended its existing business while failing to reposition itself for the emerging personal computing and software-driven technology landscape. While Kearns is credited with saving Xerox as a copier company, he is also associated with missed opportunities to transform Xerox into a broader information technology leader.

Personal life

Kearns and his wife, Shirley, had four daughters and two sons. They also had 18 grandchildren.
Kearns lost his left eye to radiation treatment related to his cancer in 1993, prompting him to wear an eye patch for the rest of his life.
Kearns died on February 25, 2011, at the age of 80 in Vero Beach, Florida, from complications related to sinus cancer.

Awards