Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield to Retire

Earlier this afternoon a SEC filing noted the impending retirement of Apple’s corporate controller, Betsy Rafael. Soon after, Apple issued a press release to announce the retirement of Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, Bob Mansfield:

Apple® today announced that Bob Mansfield, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will retire and the role will be transitioned to Dan Riccio, Apple’s vice president of iPad Hardware Engineering, over several months. The entire hardware engineering team will continue to report to Mansfield until his departure.

“Bob has been an instrumental part of our executive team, leading the hardware engineering organization and overseeing the team that has delivered dozens of breakthrough products over the years,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are very sad to have him leave and hope he enjoys every day of his retirement.”

“Dan has been one of Bob’s key lieutenants for a very long time and is very well respected within Apple and by the industry,” added Cook. “Our hardware engineering team is the best engineering team on earth and will not miss a beat during the transition.”

Mansfield has played a crucial role in the engineering success of the Mac, iPhone and iPad and has been widely seen in the promotional videos of Apple hardware. He will be replaced by Dan Riccio, the current vice president of iPad Hardware Engineering.

Below, at the 3:40 mark, we see Mansfield talk about the LED backlighting of the 2009 unibody MacBook Pro.

YouTube video

P.S. - Like our news? Support the site with a coffee/beer. Or shop with our Amazon link. We use affiliate links when possible--thank you for supporting independent media.