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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 14 /PRNewswire/ -- SGI (NYSE:SGI) today announced that Rocky Rhodes and Kenneth Yeager have joined the ranks of the most prestigious employees within SGI: chief engineers. Rhodes, a cofounder of SGI, formally rejoined the company as chief engineer on Feb. 3, 2003. Yeager was promoted from principal engineer to chief engineer; he has been with SGI since 1990. Rhodes' expertise in computer graphics and Yeager's commitment to advancing microprocessor design will further enhance SGI's standing as market leader in high-performance computing (HPC) and visualization technologies. With more than a quarter of a century combined engineering talent and experience at SGI, Rhodes and Yeager will both provide technical guidance and leadership for the engineering teams and oversee engineering initiatives significant to SGI's leadership position in the government and defense, sciences, manufacturing, energy, and media industries. SGI remains as keenly focused on graphics innovation today as it was in its first year, and Rhodes' role as chief engineer will provide technical leadership for SGI to continue building the most scalable high-performance graphics systems, that deliver the highest levels of interactivity and realism. Yeager's position will continue to focus on ensuring that MIPS microprocessors produce strong application performance at low cost, and enabling the IRIX operating system to take advantage of the processor's highly efficient design. "SGI's chief engineers are acknowledged experts in their respective fields, both within and outside SGI. The holder of this distinguished title is one who is recognized for exceptional contributions and strengths," said Dr. Eng Lim Goh, senior vice president and chief technology officer, SGI. "Rocky's original implementation of the SGI IRIS Graphics Library was subsequently transformed into OpenGL, the industry's standard interface for graphics. His original work therefore laid the foundation for widespread industry graphics innovation. Kenneth is one of the main architects of SGI's current microprocessor and is also instrumental in the efficient design and optimization of the IRIX OS. Both Rocky and Kenneth will continue to be critical contributors to the industry and our company's success moving forward." SGI annually appoints new principal and chief engineers. These engineers are recognized for their exceptional degree of creativity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, social leadership and spirit, and for the significant impact they make both inside and outside of SGI. These appointments enable them to play a broader role in the organization, while allowing them to continue focusing on what they do best-engineering. Yeager and Rhodes join SGI's existing chief engineers, Steven Miller (also based in Mountain View) and Michael Woodacre (in Reading, U.K.). Chief Engineer Rocky Rhodes A key engineering leader from 1982 to 1999, Rocky Rhodes was principal engineer/software manager from 1985 to 1989 and chief engineer from 1990 to 1999. One of the founders of SGI, he has 17 years experience in computer graphics systems and software engineering design at SGI and 23 years of engineering experience in several companies. Rhodes is the coauthor and original implementer of the SGI(R) IRIS Graphics Library(TM), which later became the OpenGL(R) industry-standard interface for graphics. He is the principal architect and implementer of the industry's first window manager with support for interactive 3D color graphics. Rhodes led the investigation and implementation of MIPS RISC technology in the first SGI RISC workstation, was the conceptual leader for the SGI(R) Indigo(R) personal workstation, coauthored the IRIS(R) showcase software product and was key architect of many of the early SGI digital media product lines. He is recognized by his peers as a strong mentor and leader and is highly regarded across the graphics industry for his accomplishments. Chief Engineer Kenneth Yeager Yeager joined the MIPS company in May 1990 as part of the microprocessor team designing MIPS(R) R6000(TM), an ECL chip. He later became an SGI employee through SGI's acquisition of MIPS in 1992. Since 1991, he has worked on many designs, including the R10000(R), R12000(R), R14000(TM) and R16000(TM) processors. All of these processor designs shipped (or will ship) in a variety of SGI systems ranging from the Indy(R) system to midlevel workstations and high-end SGI(R) Origin(R) 2000 series servers and SGI(R) Origin(R) 3000 high- performance supercomputers. Yeager is one of the main architects and a key implementer on SGI's future MIPS processor products. Yeager is an avid promoter of SGI architecture based on MIPS and has taken advantage of many presentation opportunities for customers, universities and industry conferences. Yeager presented a description of R10000 at Hot Chips 1995. SGI's commitment to recognizing outstanding talent and achievement and providing an energized environment that has attracted a cofounder back to the company is testimony to the company's culture of excellence and diversity. This commitment is also evidenced by the recent FORTUNE magazine survey in which SGI ranked number 34 in the "Top 100 Companies To Work For."