The Gerber name is synonymous with automation and is a familiar name in the electronics design and manufacturing industries. But the electronics industry isn’t the only industry he left his mark on. Heinz Joseph Gerber was born in Vienna, Austria in April of 1924 and he would have been 100 years old this year. His curious mind, which saw things through a very technical lens, paved the way for him to learn to fix and then invent things at a very young age. Gerber earned more than 650 patents in his lifetime. After escaping a Nazi labor camp, he immigrated to America with his mother and pursued an education. He finished high school in two years and earned a scholarship to study aeronautical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. H. Joseph Gerber went on to revolutionize drafting, mapping, apparel, electronics, and manufacturing.

It was a homework assignment at RPI during his junior year that marks the beginning of his storied career. When Gerber was given an assignment to design a twin-engine aircraft, the assignment required many calculations for measuring curves. The tedious assignment required so many measurements and arithmetic, that Gerber knew there had to be a better way. The Gerber Variable Scale was born of that assignment, and he went on to start Gerber Scientific Instruments Company to manufacture the device, a graphical-numerical computing device. His invention is known as “the greatest engineering tool since the slide rule.” Gerber Scientific went on to develop multiple products, ultimately growing to become a global supplier of intelligent manufacturing systems for almost a dozen industries; most notably, plastic, electronics, and textiles.

Gerber Scientific devised new uses for plastics, which often pioneered new industries. Gerber introduced the first systems able to create graphics under digital control and it became a leader in computer-aided design and manufacturing. We know those systems as CAD and Cam today. These systems also lead to the development of UPC barcodes, printed circuit boards, and basic steps of commercial printing.

Gerber Scientific didn’t stop there, they built on their work with plastics to invent and introduce a form of plotter that, as an automated drafting and design system, used a controlled beam of light rather than an ink pen to draw digital graphics directly onto photographic film. They called the device the “photoplotter.” It was considered the world’s most accurate printing technology, and it reduced the time and cost of fabricating circuit boards. The photoplotter enabled production of more sophisticated, miniaturized, multi-layered PCBs and integrated circuits. His photoplotter systems evolved to include the functionality to digitize, interactively edit, and generate mechanical design data and electronic circuit board artwork. The descriptive PCB manufacturing script language Gerber invented for the photoplotter was published and became the industry standard electronics manufacturing file format that we still use today. In the electronics industry, we commonly refer to it as Gerber data or Gerber files.

“Fix what’s wrong, keep what’s right, and move ahead.” — H. Joseph Gerber

With his innovative spirit, H. Joseph Gerber was constantly finding “a better way” throughout his career. He founded Gerber Scientific Institute in 1947 and served as chief executive and principal inventor until his death in 1996. He is considered to be one of the world’s most impactful, yet least known inventors and is said to have had a never-ending thirst to improve things. For those of us in the electronics industry, we continue to heavily rely on the Gerber file format. Other formats, such as ODB++ and IPC-2581, are hoping to replace it, but the industry is resisting that change. To this day, most electronics are still built up using a Gerber file set.