Craig K. Harmon, the president and CEO of Q.E.D. Systems Inc. and a longtime standards professional, passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, July 3, 2014, at the age of 67. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) offers its condolences to his family and friends and colleagues at Q.E.D. Systems and in the wider standardization community.
Mr. Harmon served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1968, including a deployment in Vietnam, and received his bachelor of business administration degree in economics and international trade from the University of Iowa. Following his graduation, he worked at Northwestern Bell and then Norand, where he was director, systems engineering. In 1981, he founded Q.E.D. Systems, a consulting firm focused on standards development and education related to bar codes, RFID, and other automatic identification technologies, and spent more than 33 years as the company's leader.
During his career, Mr. Harmon played an essential role in the development of standards associated with bar code and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies, including international standards, and was a significant figure in the automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) industry. Mr. Harmon was the convener of International Organization of Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 122, Packaging, Working Group (WG) 12, Supply chain applications of logistics technology, and the chair of ISO TC 122/TC 104, Freight containers, Joint Working Group, Supply chain applications of RFID. He played a significant role in the formation of ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Joint Technical Committee (JTC) 1, Information Technology, Subcommittee (SC) 31, Automatic identification and data capture techniques, and served as the convener of its WG 6, Mobile Item Identification and Management (MIIM).
Mr. Harmon was the author of the books Reading Between the Lines: An Introduction to Bar Code Technology and Lines of Communications - Bar Code & Data Collection Technology in the 90s, as well as many articles on topics related to RFID, the global supply chain, and the Internet of Things (IoT), among other subjects. In 2004, Mr. Harmon received the Richard R. Dilling Award from the Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility (AIM) and AIDC 100, honoring his outstanding contributions to the AIDC industry and efforts to promote related growth and innovation.
Mr. Harmon is survived by his wife, Marsha Harmon, as well as his father, his sister, his son, his daughter, his step-daughter, and five grandchildren.