Gary K Starkweather received his B.S. in Physics from Michigan State University in 1960, and a Master's Degree in Optics from the University of Rochester in 1966. He started work at Xerox in Rochester, but soon moved to the Palo Alto Research Center in California. There, he invented the laser printer, for which he is most well-known. After developing his product at Xerox for many years, Starkweather moved to Apple, and later Microsoft.  

For this invention, Starkweather received numerous awards and recognitions. He was a Fellow of OSA, and received the 1989 Paul F. Forman Engineering Award and the 1991 David Richardson Medal.

He passed away in 2019.