Kenneth Hess

As a testament to the quality of resources Hess has implemented and developed at Science Buddies to meet the needs of K-12 educators and to help bridge the gap between researchers and K-12 students, Science Buddies was awarded the prestigious Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE) in April 2011. SPORE awards are given by Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

At the same time, he recognized that many students lack the resources and support they need to get the maximum educational benefit from a science fair project. With a goal of supporting students from all walks of life (as well as their teachers, parents, and schools) in doing science research projects, Hess founded Science Buddies in 2001 under the umbrella of the Kenneth Lafferty Hess Family Charitable Foundation. (The organization formalized its name change to Science Buddies in 2010.)

In 1999, Hess co-founded Pocket Express, a company that designed and manufactured software for Palm pocket computers. Pocket Express' product line was sold to Handmark, Inc. in 2002.

Hess' success with Banner Blue Software was an exercise in "bootstrapping." Starting the company with a personal investment of $20,000, Hess bootstrapped Banner Blue Software into a company with 100 employees and annual sales of $25 million (and approximately 2 million copies of Family Tree Maker sold) when Broderbund Software, Inc. acquired it in 1995. Hess outlined the success of Banner Blue and his "bootstrapping" approach in Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch.

Prior to launching his first company, Hess worked at Intel Corporation, Teradyne, Hewlett-Packard, and Symantec. He founded Banner Blue Software in 1984. Tapping into a growing societal interest in genealogy and personal ancestry, Banner Blue developed Family Tree Maker, genealogy software that enabled users to locate and organize ancestral information. During the first half of 1996, Family Tree Maker was one of three top-selling personal productivity product lines, according to PC Data. Banner Blue also developed Org Plus, a tool for creating corporate organization charts. A version of Org Plus, labeled Microsoft Organization Chart, was bundled into copies of Microsoft Office for many years. Hess wrote the initial versions of both Family Tree Maker and Org Plus and designed the initial version of Family Tree Maker Online.

Hess was born in Warren, Ohio, to Phyllis Lafferty Hess and Richard Morton Hess. After graduating from Howland High School in 1971, Hess attended Stanford University where he earned a BS in Engineering. His course of study was interdisciplinary with emphasis in engineering, computer science, and political science. Following Stanford, Hess received an MBA from Harvard.

Kenneth Lafferty Hess (born January 22, 1953) is an engineer, author, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Hess is founder and president of Science Buddies, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering science literacy through the creation of free resources and services for K-12 students, teachers, and families. He holds one of the first software patents ever granted and has designed and/or developed dozens of commercial software, content, and Internet products, including Family Tree Maker, one of the all-time best-selling home software programs. Among his awards are a PC Magazine Editor's Choice, PC Magazine Top 100 Web Site, a Codie award and a Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE).