Elliot Handler He was survived by his 70-year-old daughter Barbara. Ruth Handler died in 2002. Elliot Handler Elliot Handler (April 9, 1916 – July 21, 2011) was an American inventor, businessman, and co-founder of Mattel. With his wife, he developed some of the biggest-selling toys in American history, including Barbie, Chatty Cathy, Creepy Crawlers, and Hot Wheels. Handler was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, on April 9, 1916, and grew up in Denver, Colorado. He studied industrial design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In 1929, he met his future wife Ruth Mosko at a
Sheryl Handler tool with which to develop software programs for artificial intelligence. Handler helped found the Thinking Machines Corporation, where she served as CEO until 1992. After the Thinking Machines Corporation went bankrupt in 1995, Handler and several other former employees founded Ab Initio Software. Sheryl Handler Sheryl Handler is an American businesswoman recognized as one of the founders of Thinking Machines and is the founder and current CEO of Ab Initio. Handler attended Case Western Reserve University for interior design and received her master's degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University. Handler had previously participated in the start-up of the Genetics