Edgar F. Codd
Edgar Codd was originally born in England and only came to the U.S after he enrolled in the Royal Air Force and was sent to the United States for aviation training. He joined IBM in 1949 which began his computing career. Him and his team will forever be remembered as the people who created the relational model of data. This model is widely recognized as one of the greatest technical achievements in the 20th century. This revolutionized the way we look at databases an now we use it in our everyday life; from using a credit card and ATM to buying a ticket for and airplane. Codd resigned from IBM in 1984 due to the company not taking much interest into his new model. Codd was able to see the relational database industry grow beyond measures even he thought it could grow too. He kept encouraging vendors to develop full relational products. He even had strong influence over Michael Stonebreaker. Codd had a great deal of influence in jump starting the relational data models that first came about.