As the executive director and CEO of Computer History Museum, John C. Toole oversees and drives the overall strategic vision of the museum, and reports directly to the Board of Trustees. The museum’s charter is to explore the worldwide computing revolution and its impact on the human experience. In this position, Toole leverages more than 28 years of research and development experience in advanced computing, networking, information technology and microelectronics, culminating in national leadership positions in science and technology management across industry, academia, and government.

Formerly one of two deputy directors at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, Toole oversaw the technical operation and coordination of the National Computational Science Alliance throughout the United States. Launched in October 1997, the Alliance now involves more than 50 research institutions, led by NCSA, working together to prototype the advanced computational infrastructure of the next century. It is one of two initiatives funded by the National Science Foundation's Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program.

Prior to the NCSA, Toole was the first fulltime director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for Computing, Information, and Communications. He also served as executive director for High Performance Computing and Communications for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and as acting director – after several years as program manager and deputy office director – of DARPA’s Computing Systems Technology Office (CSTO), which was responsible for advancing computing systems technologies.

Toole retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1994 after more than 22 years of service. In addition to his DARPA experience, he managed a VLSI Computer Aided Design (CAD) branch, studied computer engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, worked in hardware/software performance analysis of large scale computing systems, and designed and implemented portions of real time operating systems. Toole holds BS and MSEE degrees from Cornell University.

John Toole and his family recently relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area from North Potomac, Maryland. He and his wife, Betsy Toole, have been married for 29 years. They have two sons, Patrick and Tim. Toole’s interests include golf and travel.

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