A year before earning his doctorate from Columbia, he was recruited by Wallace John Eckert as a research physicist at the Watson Laboratory at Columbia University to help advance IBM's research capabilities in solid state physics.[2][9]
In 1954, he was promoted to physicist in charge of semiconductor research at Poughkeepsie, New York.[8] In 1957, he became manager of research analysis and planning staff of IBM's Poughkeepsie campus.
In 1959, Tucker was made manager of IBM's San Jose, California research laboratory and in 1961 advanced to Director of Development Engineering of the IBM World Trade Corporation.[7] In January 1963, Tucker was named IBM's Director of Research.[2]
As Director of Research, Tucker launched a planning effort that pulled together staff from various divisions to determine what projects could be handled by existing technologies and what would require a radically different approach, streamlining the company's research and development agenda.[10] He also started research into field effective transistors and related areas such as processing techniques, chemistry, lithography, and circuit design, laying the groundwork for IBM's mainframe memories.[10]
From 1976 to 1985, Tucker was vice president for Science and Technology for International Paper.[15] He also served as a director of Motorola and was the chairman of the technology committee and a member of the executive and audit committees.[1][15]
^Columbia College (Columbia University). Office of Alumni Affairs and Development; Columbia College (Columbia University) (1962–1963). Columbia College today. Columbia University Libraries. New York, N.Y. : Columbia College, Office of Alumni Affairs and Development.