Jonathan Bruce Postel was born August 6, 1943 in Altadena, California. No one could have imagined then that he would grow up to be a significant member of the team who created the Internet as we know it today.
He made many contributions to the ARPANET project, which later became the Internet as we know it today. Several of the projects he worked on are listed as links below:
- Birth of the Internet
- Requests for Comments
- Transmission Control Protocol
- Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
Sadly, Jon died October 16, 1998 following complications from a heart valve replacement surgery in a hospital in Los Angeles.
The Internet Society (ISOC) provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). They give one award yearly and is named in honor of Jon Postel, it is aptly named The Postel Award. The recepient is a person who makes an outstanding contribution in service to the data communications community.