Philip Taylor Kramer, aerospace engineer
From rockstar to innovative technologist, Philip Taylor Kramer’s life was full of promise that was suddenly cut short. Best known as the bassist of Iron Butterfly, Taylor left the band after recording two albums with them to pursue an engineering career. He received his aerospace engineering degree from the Western States College of Engineering.
Kramer went on to work on the MX missile guidance system as a subcontractor for the Department of Defense. Later in his career, he would take his interest in video compression and started working on fractal-compression and facial-recognition systems, technology unheard of in the 1990s.
In 1990, he formed MTT Visions with Tom Simpson to develop and integrate data compression for digital storage. The following year, MTT Visions merged with Randy Jackson Entertainment Corp (yes, Michael Jackson’s brother) to form Total Multimedia Inc. Though the company filed for bankruptcy in 1994, Kramer continued working on facial-recognition systems to locate missing persons.
However, tragedy struck in 1995 when Kramer left for the Los Angeles International Airport to pick up a business associate and never arrived. His body was discovered four years later at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California. To this day, it’s unclear if his death was a suicide, homicide, or an accident.
