Jeff Raikes, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's chief executive, once said he learned about computer programming at Stanford in order to help his brother, Ron, who was running the family farm in Nebraska.

The two brothers bought an Apple II and programmed it to handle the farm's accounting. Jeff Raikes went on to work at Apple and then spent 27 years at Microsoft, while his older brother Ron remained at home in Nebraska to head a large cattle operation and grow corn, soybeans and wheat.

It was at the family farm where Ron Raikes died in an accident Saturday after getting caught under a piece of farm equipment. His funeral will be held today in Lincoln.

Ron Raikes became a state senator in 1997 and served for 11 years. He earned a doctorate in agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis and taught agricultural economics at Iowa State University before taking over the helm of the farm from his father in the late '70s.

The younger Raikes, who had thought he would return to rural Nebraska but stayed in Seattle, now heads the world's largest private foundation helping shape agricultural development around the world.