Jon K. Clemens received a B.A. degree in Physics from Goshen College in June, 1960, a B.S. and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT in June 1963, and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT in September, 1965. His Ph.D. thesis research was in optical character recognition for reading machines for the blind. He joined RCA Laboratories in 1965 to work on high density video recording for consumer use. During the years 1965 through 1970 he worked on various approaches to video disc systems and conceived the capacitive pick-up video disc system used by RCA today. The basic U.S. patent on this system entitled "Information Records and Recording/Playback Systems Therefor" was granted to him for this invention.

During the next years his work included all aspects of system development, including disc format and signal encoding systems and the responsibility for specifying the RCA VideoDisc standards. In 1975 he was appointed Head, Signal System Research, with the primary responsibility for developing the VideoDisc signal system for both mastering and player design, and has recently been appointed Director, VideoDisc Systems Research Laboratory.

He has received three RCA Laboratories Outstanding Achievement Awards and the David Sarnoff Award for outstanding technical achievement for his work on the CED VideoDisc System. He was also a recipient of the 1980 Eduard Rhein Prize for major improvements in television systems. He is a member of the IEEE, Eta Kappa Nu, Sigma Xi, and Tau Beta Pi Societies.
- RCA 1981 Company Biography

Dr. Clemens has devoted essentially his entire professional career to the development of the RCA CED VideoDisc system. He is one of the key architects of the system as a whole, and he played the principal role in selecting the method used to encode the picture and sound information. In the latter phases of the project, Dr. Clemens managed a group at Princeton which helped solve many of the difficult problems encountered in bringing the VideoDisc system to a commercial reality. Dr. Clemens received the prestigious Rhein Prize for his contributions to video disc technology.
- 1981 David Sarnoff Award Announcement

After VideoDisc, Jon Clemens became Senior Vice President of Science and Technology at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International.

In 1995, Dr. Clemens became founding President and CEO of Sharp Laboratories of America (SLA).

In 1997, Dr. Clemens joined the Advisory Board for the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University.

Jon Clemens, Ph.D is the leader of Sharp Technology Ventures, an organization created to commercialize innovations and technologies developed at Sharp Laboratories of America. Dr. Clemens served as president and chief executive officer at Sharp Labs from the organization's founding until his retirement in 2003.

During his tenure at Sharp Labs, Dr. Clemens grew the lab to include more than 275 employees. He structured the lab's research and development teams around the key areas of applied research that provided Sharp Corporation the most opportunity for innovation and market leadership in North America. These include six core departments, which over the past eight years have contributed directly to Sharp's category leadership in its product lines, including those for liquid crystal display-based televisions, mobile phones, communications devices and software.

Prior to his leadership at Sharp Labs, Dr. Clemens held executive positions with other premier research organizations, including Sarnoff Corporation, SRI International, and RCA.
- 2004 Sharp Technology Ventures Biography

Clemens, Dr. Jon K. age 76 - May 10, 1938 to Jan. 07, 2015
Dr. Jon K. Clemens died Jan. 7, 2015, in Camas, Wash., at the age of 76. He was president and CEO of Sharp Laboratories of America (SLA) until his retirement in 2003. Prior to SLA, he served for five years as senior vice president of Science and Technology at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International. He also spent 21 years at the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center, where he was in charge of consumer electronics research. Jon was born May 10, 1938, in Sellersville, Pa. He attended Christopher Dock Mennonite High School where in the tenth grade, he began dating his wife-to-be, Arlene. They married in 1959 and moved to Boston, where Jon earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at MIT.

Jon began his career at RCA in Princeton, N.J., where they lived for 25 years. They then moved to California for five years before settling in Camas in 1995. Jon was an active member of the First Presbyterian Church, singing in the choir, serving as an elder and sitting on many committees. He was an important part of his community, serving on various boards, playing tennis and golf with friends and inviting many to join him in his real passion, sailing on his beloved Moonstruck. He lived a full life and will be dearly missed by family and friends.

Jon is survived by his wife, Arlene; children, Terri (Michael) Coar, Gina (Todd) Novak and Steven (Maria) Clemens; grandchildren, Evan and Trevor Coar and Marisol and Andres Clemens; and siblings, Paul, Ed, Becky and Mary. He was preceded in death by his father, Paul; mother, Mary; and siblings, Sylvia and Phil. A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church, 1200 S.W. Alder Street. Donations may be sent to the Friends of Menucha Foundation or The First Presbyterian Church music program.
- January 9, 2015 The Oregonian Obituary

See Jon Clemens on slide 458 from Memories of VideoDisc.

Search for patents issued to Jon Kaufmann Clemens.

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