Amos E. Joel Jr. - Father of the Cell Phone

Amos E. Joel, Jr.’s definition of a “switcher”: 
"The thing that makes a switch is anything where you have a selection in a telecommunications network.  To make a selection, you must have switching.”

"Switching is essential if you are going to have person to person telecommunications."

Amos E. Joel, Jr. was an AT&T Bell Labs engineer and inventor. He was a world authority in the field of switching technology, whose interests were sparked when he was a young boy---always asking “How does this work?” He became known as the “Father of International Switching Symposium,” and was granted more than 70 patents for inventions all of which affect our daily lives. (2)

Mr. Joel was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1918, moving with his mother and father to New York City in 1927. Always fascinated with electronics and patents throughout his childhood, he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, ultimately matriculating to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He graduated from MIT in 1940 earning a bachelor’s degree  and subsequently a master’s degree in 1942 in Electrical Engineering.

After graduation, Mr. Joel was employed by Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs), where he worked and thrived for 43 years.   He rose from a fabricator of electromechanical switchgear in the late 1930s to become one of the leading architects and designers at AT&T’s first, regular-production electronic switching network in the 1960s. (3)

While at Bell Labs, during World War II, his designs for early digital computers and “cryptanalysis” machines were instrumental in the development of coding and de-coding machines for military and diplomatic use.  (After visiting Bell Labs, Alan Turing, the renowned British computer pioneer, incorporated some of Mr. Joel’s ideas into Colossus, the digital computer which helped to crack the Nazi Enigma codes.)  Furthermore, Mr. Joel and his colleagues were also part of a highly confidential project which designed a scrambler.  This scrambler enabled Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt to conduct vital, encrypted conversations during wartime.  In 1994 he was instrumental in assisting the set decorator from “When Lions Roared,” who needed help in recreating the “telephone room” from which these private communications took place.

Throughout his esteemed career, Mr. Joel was a prolific inventor who wrote volumes on the history and modern development of switching technology, creating and participating in many educational training programs.

Chief among his inventions was Patent # 3,663,762 granted in 1972.

This “Mobile Communication System” patent revolutionized cellular communication.  For this patent, Mr. Joel was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008. (4) It is also why he should be included as one of the founding Fathers of the cell phone.

In addition to the National Inventors Hall of Fame honor, Mr. Joel was recognized nationally and internationally for his extraordinary contributions to technology and humanity.  Among them:
The Stuart Ballantine Medal from the Franklin Institute (1981) (5)
The Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology (1989) (6)
The National Medal of Technology (1993) (7)

The last was conferred upon him by President Bill Clinton.  He was acknowledged “For his vision, inventiveness and perseverance in introducing technological advances in telecommunications, particularly in switching, that have had a major impact on the evolution of the telecommunications industry in the U.S. and worldwide.”

Amos E. Joel, Jr. passed away at home in Maplewood, NJ on October 25, 2008 at 90 years of age. (8)