Zebra Technologies founder Ed Kaplan dies
By
John Pletz
July 21, 2025
05:31 AM
Ed Kaplan had a knack for building things, including companies. One of Chicago’s earliest and most successful technology entrepreneurs, Kaplan co-founded Zebra Technologies and pushed his alma maters, the Illinois Institute of Technology and University of Chicago, to train students in how to build and lead companies. He died July 14 at age 82.
Kaplan and Gerhard “Gary” Cless, who were coworkers at Teletype in Skokie, started Data Specialties Corp. and manufactured high-speed machines that punched holes in long paper tape to track inventory in 1969. In 1982, they introduced a barcode-label printer, and the company took off.
“They were the first to commercialize barcode printers using thermal transfer technologies for on-demand printing,” says Zebra’s chairman, Anders Gustafsson, who succeeded Kaplan as CEO in 2007. “They created the market leader and made sure their printers were the best in the industry.”
Zebra Technologies went public in 1991 and today is valued at nearly $17 billion, with roughly 10,000 employees and $5 billion in annual sales after expanding into radio-frequency identification, or RFID, tags, handheld computers and industrial-scanning products. “He left a huge imprint, building the company from nothing to $700 million in revenue. He was respected for his leadership and attention to detail.”
Kaplan also left an indelible mark on UChicago’s Booth School of Business and Illinois Tech, donating millions in pursuit of entrepreneurship. “I started a company in 1969 — Zebra — and went through the kinds of things you need to do. It takes certain skills and commitment,” he said in an interview with Crain's nearly a decade ago. “I thought the city of Chicago, the economy in general and the careers of students could be enhanced if we had a good entrepreneurial program.”
Kaplan pushed Booth to create its entrepreneurship program and put up the prize money for its business plan competition, the New Venture Challenge, which later was named for him. Winners of the competition include high-profile Chicago startups Grubhub, Braintree and Simple Mills. “He was critical in getting NVC and entrepreneurship off the ground,” says Steve Kaplan (no relation), a professor of entrepreneurship at Booth. “He was a catalyst.” In an interview with Crain’s about the origins of NVC, Kaplan recalled being pitched on the business plan competition: “I said I’ll fund it for maybe three years to see if it could get off the ground.”
At Illinois Tech, where he earned an undergraduate degree in engineering, he funded the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation & Tech Entrepreneurship. “It’s transformed Illinois Tech,” says Joel Krauss, a fellow alum who later served on the school’s board with Kaplan. “It created focus on startups we hadn’t had before. Since he retired, his focus was on Illinois Tech. He was a leader with a vision for what it should become.”
Howard Tullman, who served as the first executive director of the Kaplan Institute when it opened in 2018, says, “It was about preparing these kids to be more than just robots writing code in cubicles.”
Kaplan grew up in the Lawndale neighborhood and later moved to Rogers Park. His father, Meyer, was a business owner. Kaplan met his wife, Carol, in grade school, and they later attended Senn High School, where he developed an interest in mechanical drawing. Kaplan excelled at Illinois Tech and earned a scholarship to Northwestern University for a doctoral program but decided instead to study finance at UChicago’s business school.
“He really cared about students from underserved communities who were first in their families to go to college,” Krauss says.
Before his death, Kaplan also agreed to fund a prototyping and fabrication facility for students at Illinois Tech. “He was an engineer at heart,” Tullman says. “When the first Apple computer came out, he took it home and played with it for a day and took it apart to figure out what was going on. That’s who he was. He was so inquisitive.”
He also loved the arts, from glass sculpture to jazz, especially Charlie “Bird” Parker, whom Kaplan saw perform in New York at an early age. “He loved sax players,” recalls Krauss, who accompanied Kaplan to Andy’s Jazz and the Green Mill in Chicago.
Kaplan also was an avid cyclist. “He was
quiet and serious but had a great sense of humor," Krauss says. "He
was a Renaissance man, and he did it all well.”