Chris Gulker

Chris Gulker, who helped pioneer a variety of digital concepts in newspapering — he was a leader in the transition from film to digital photography and helped found the first SF Examiner web site — succumbed to brain cancer on Oct. 27. He was 59.

After a successful career as a photojournalist at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Gulker moved to the San Francisco Examiner in 1988 to help the paper’s photo staff change over to digital cameras. From there he became the paper’s “director of development,” a period where he learned a variety of computer systems and he worked closely with Will Hearst in launching the Examiner’s first web site, the “Electric Examiner.”

Gulker left daily newspapering in 1994 to go to work for Apple Computer. He was involved in Silicon Valley technology companies for the rest of his career, working at Montclare Technologies, RealTimeImage and Adobe Systems Inc.

In the mid-1990s Gulker began writing his thoughts and observations on his website, Gulker.com, on a daily basis and was one of the first people to do what today is known as blogging. He built the technology to blog himself, using Macintosh and other servers running in a makeshift “computer room” in his Menlo Park garage.

Most recently, Gulker and others in Menlo Park had launched a “hyper-local” news site, InMenlo.com, where he wrote and took photographs.

Here’s a link to more information about Gulker.