Steve Jobs, the celebrated CEO of not just Apple, but of corporations worldwide, has retired. Tim Cook, chief operating officer will now helm the company.

The company Jobs founded, along with tech whiz Steve Wozniak, earned a reputation in the public eye as the premier technology innovator of the 21st. century. Most notable among those innovations are the iPhone and iPad. But long before he was a household name, he was a star among the creative community over three decades ago.

Job’s loyal legion of followers were enamored in part by the sexy computers Apple manufactured, such as the original Macintosh. The corporate world was slow to accept the Mac into their work environment. Many battles were fought by in-house designers in favor of Macs over PC’s. I recall, as art director of a California corporation, the struggle I had to purchase Macs for my department. We settled on a compromise by putting both a Mac and PC in my office. As you can imagine, the PC collected dust.

Also highly favored by designers and other creatives was Apple’s user-friendly operating systems. Those operating systems certainly came from talented engineers working at Apple, but its success could ultimately be traced back to the unique operating system known as Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs had earned a reputation of being very meticulous, demanding and somewhat difficult to work with, but we who use his products are the beneficiaries of his high standards.

Jobs most recent public appearance was at the World Developer Conference in June. He appeared thin and seemed to move with some effort, nevertheless, he still commanded the audience in his signature jeans, tennis shoes and turtle neck. His presentation was, as usual, that of a master showman and confident salesman.

You can read more about Jobs on his wiki page.

We offer our prayers for Mr. Job’s health.