Business legend, PC pioneer, TCU trustee John Roach dies

Fort Worth business legend and TCU alumnus John Vinson Roach II died early Sunday. Roach was 83. After joining the Fort Worth-based Tandy Corp. in 1967, he rose through the ranks and helped turn it into a personal computer behemoth in the late 1970s. At 42, he was named Tandy’s president in 1981 and later CEO from 1983 to 1998. He joined Tandy as a data processing manager and helped lead the company as a pioneer in the microcomputer industry. “At that time, neither the concept nor the thought of a personal computer had even been conceived,” Roach said in a TCU Honors biography.

Roach was integral in foreseeing how personal computing could change the future for the business and consumers. Roach earned a physics and math degree from TCU and later added a master’s degree in business administration. It was during his graduate school time at TCU that Roach first learned of computer programming. Roach was born on Nov. 22, 1938, in Stamford. His family moved to Fort Worth in 1942. Roach was elected chairman of TCU’s Board of Trustees in 1990 and led the “1990s Project,” an initiative to help set the school’s agenda for the next 10 years. He helped hire Michael R. Ferrari as TCU chancellor in 1998 to replace William E. Tucker when he retired in 1998. He served on the board until 2005.