Apple’s Perk for 5-Year Stint : Sculley Signing Off for 9-Week Sabbatical

After years of dedicated, hard work--not to mention leading a company to record-setting sales and profits--an employee deserves a little time off, right?

Of course. So John Sculley, chairman and chief executive of Apple Computer, is planning to take a nine-week, fully paid leave from the helm of the high-flying personal computer maker beginning June 29. The leave includes three weeks of vacation and a six-week “sabbatical” Apple allows every employee who has worked at the company at least five years.

“He’s going to take some time to think and reflect,” a Sculley spokesman said. “He’s not going to dash around like he usually does.”

Sculley, who received a $2.1-million compensation package from Apple last year, is the company’s third high-ranking executive to take advantage of its novel--and popular--benefit.

Dozens Have Enjoyed Benefit

Last summer, Jean-Louis Gassee, Apple’s vice president for product development, took a six-week leave. And the summer before, Delbert Yocam, the company’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, went on an extended vacation. The company estimates that dozens of other employees--from clerks on up--have taken advantage of the program since it went into effect in 1985.

Apple is one of a handful of American corporations offering employees an extra vacation bonus in recognition of time on the job, a practice that seems to have sparked the most enthusiasm among high-tech firms. An electronics industry survey several years ago showed that 19 of 444 companies offered the program and still many more were studying it.

Last year, Intel Corp. Chairman Andy Grove took his second eight-week sabbatical from the Silicon Valley chip maker. Intel allows employees an eight-week leave every seven years.

Apple officials said they doubted that Sculley’s extended leave would have much direct impact on the company’s day-to-day operations because those largely are handled by Yocam.

In any event, the spokesman for Sculley said the executive plans to remain in close contact with the company throughout the extended vacation by using the Apple Link network, a computer-to-computer communication system available to Apple computer users.

Furthermore, the spokesman said, Sculley is expected to attend the company’s board meeting in August and deliver the keynote address at an all-important Apple product convention in Boston in early August.

As for the vacation part of his leave, the spokesman said Sculley plans to spend considerable time with his wife and children at their home in Woodside, just north of the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, as well as their vacation house in Maine.

Sculley is expected to return to the daily grind Sept. 2.