By PDX People

Born in 1955, and raised in the Bay Area, what most people don’t know about Steve Jobs is that he also has a Portland connection because he briefly attended Reed College where he studied calligraphy, Shakespeare, dance and made life long connections that would help him during the formative years of Apple computers.

Although he didn’t graduate from Reed College, Jobs called his time there instrumental in helping him to “think like an artist” and this trailblazing thinking is one of the biggest factors in the creative development of Apples products over the years.

After dropping out at Reed College, Steve Jobs stayed in the Portland area and continued auditing classes there for another 18 months while he also spent some time working in a nearby apple orchard owned by Robert Friedland.

Many people speculate that it was his time working in the Apple Orchard that led him to name his company Apple.

By 1974 Jobs left the Portland area and headed back to the Bay Area, but he always held a fondness for Reed College in his heart, especially since Steve Jobs considered his time there to have been responsible for helping to develop his character because jobs believed that real character wasn’t created in good times but in times of adversity.

Apple Computers

Following his time at Reed College, Steve Jobs briefly worked for Atari, traveled to India, and developed a passion for Zen Buddhism before starting Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak in 1976 after both men successfully developed a “blue box” which could be used by anyone to manipulate telephone networks and make long distance calls for free.

Apple Computers was initially started in the garage of Steve Job’s parent’s home at 2066 Crist Dr. in Los Altos, Calif.

The company faced a lot of opposition early on, mainly from people who felt that personal computers were an unnecessary luxury in those times, but they eventually won over the hearts and minds of people all over the world and became one of the world’s top technology brands.

There’s no denying that jobs had a major influence on technology from the birth of the home PC in the 1980’s, to the smart phone and tablet in the 2000’s and following his death in 2011 we still continue using products and services that he had a hand in creating.