Christian Ministry & Coding: How a Missionary Kid Made Her Mark at Adobe

Priscilla Knoble (BA 89) comes from a rich heritage of Christian ministry.

Her mother graduated from Wheaton College in 1949. Among her good friends were Jim and Elisabeth Elliot and Eleanor Vandevort. In response to a call for missionaries in Japan after World War II, Knoble’s mom moved to the islands in 1950 with TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission). Thirteen years later, she met Knoble’s dad, an off-Broadway actor who had given his life to Christ in his 30s and moved to Japan as a missionary. They married and became church planters, moving every five years to start a new church.

This was life as she knew it. Knoble always imagined herself in Japan. She planned to get an elementary education major in the States and return to teach at her boarding school, Christian Academy (CAJ), a Christian ministry in Tokyo. Her plan never included a successful career in software, but as Knoble says, when we take Colossians 3:23 to heart, there is no telling how God might use us. 

The Making of a Maker

Knoble’s pursuit of excellence can be traced back to her village at the base of Mount Fuji in the ‘60s. One of her favorite childhood pastimes was making things from scratch. She was gifted her first toy sewing machine at the age of 4, and by the time she was in late elementary school, she was making her own clothes. 

“Japan is very hands-on,” said Knoble. “They celebrate creativity, crafts, and things being done by hand.” 

Knoble was also very hands-on with Christian ministry. At 9, she began teaching the 2- and 3-year-olds’ Sunday school class, and by high school, she was in charge of the Vacation Bible School curriculum. Teaching came naturally; she assumed this was her future. 

In 1984, Grace College sent an admissions representative to CAJ, and the path to Knoble’s future became clearer. 

“I had a strong conviction that if I didn’t learn to like living in the U.S., I would never be happy anywhere but Japan,” said Knoble. 

Looking for a small school where she couldn’t fall back on speaking Japanese with old classmates, she chose Grace.

Training to Teach

Knoble had only visited the States three times before she arrived at Grace as an elementary education major in 1985, so it was no surprise she formed fast friendships with the other missionary kids on campus. 

“People look at you and assume you are American, so they assume you’ve been in the same culture, you watch the same TV shows, and you care about the same things,” said Knoble. “It was a very different experience.” 

Excited about creating a place of belonging for missionary kids like her, Knoble was involved with spearheading a MuKappa chapter on campus in 1986. MuKappa, a club for third culture kids on college campuses, was an invaluable space for students like Knoble to feel understood. The group met for Bible studies, collaborated with chapters at surrounding schools, and attended retreats with missionary kids from other colleges. Knoble found the commonality in the group comforting as she navigated life in the U.S.

As Knoble approached her senior year, she began to experience what she calls a “bone-deep feeling” that she wasn’t supposed to return to Japan. When it did not pan out to teach locally in Winona Lake, she whipped out her atlas.

“I knew I needed to go somewhere where if I couldn’t teach, I could use my Japanese, my next best asset,” she said.

Knoble’s options were limited in the ‘80s, so she took advantage of connections in Seattle and moved there to teach at a small church school. She went on to pursue a master’s in developmental reading at the University of Washington. Upon graduating, she moved to the East Coast, where her parents returned to retire, to teach at Delaware County Christian School.

“After three years on the East Coast without the means to travel, I missed engaging with the Japanese language and culture,” said Knoble. “I wondered if I should continue teaching or do something else.”

A Start in Software

Knoble had several friends in the software industry, including a couple working on Japanese software for Claris and Apple. Although she would have never claimed to be a tech person, she began experimenting with Japanese fonts on her Mac. 

When her parents moved into a retirement community, she returned to Seattle. She was well-positioned to get involved with software localization for the Japanese — a market U.S. companies were just beginning to tap into. 

Knoble began working for a localization company, where she quickly learned the ropes of preparing the software for different markets. In 1996, both Microsoft and Adobe offered her jobs. She chose Adobe, where she spent the majority of the next 28 years, aside from a few months at Microsoft in 2005. Her first position was to start the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean quality assurance team for PageMaker 6.5. She soon moved to product management, a role that better aligned with her skill set.

She began working on the Japanese version of a promising software called InDesign. Knoble and one of her best friends from Japan pitched the idea of building a separate development team for a Japanese version. With Adobe’s full trust and support, they built a team that focused on a completely culturalized product for the Japanese market at the same time digitization was taking place.

“We did what no other Western company had done before,” said Knoble. “We created from scratch a product that knocked even Japanese competition out of the water.”

The product is still considered to have the best Japanese text engine in Japan today, and Knoble was dubbed “the mother of InDesign” because of her vital role in the product’s success. 

In 1999, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen told Apple’s Steve Jobs about Knoble and the team’s work. She was asked to go to Cupertino to meet with Jobs. The following year, she was on stage at Macworld Japan, speaking about InDesign Japan. 

After becoming the group manager of InDesign, InCopy, and InDesign Server, she became the group product manager for system integrators and third-party plugins for Adobe’s creative products like InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. A few transitions later, Knoble now serves as the senior director of international strategy and product management for the Digital Media Business Unit, where she oversees the strategy for international versions of the apps in the Creative Cloud and Document Cloud. She oversees a team of 20 people and travels 100,000 to 150,000 miles a year. 

Regardless of the project or team, Knoble has worked with integrity, invested in relationships, and sought opportunities to share her faith with colleagues worldwide. 

Growing up as a missionary kid opened doors to an unexpected, but remarkable career that has allowed her to stay connected to her roots in Japan. As she nears retirement, Knoble looks forward to devoting more time to her hobbies. Whether she is working on her latest craft, going on a mission trip, or hosting Taco Tuesday for her neighbors, this is certain: Knoble will “do it heartily, as unto the Lord.”

Discover Grace’s new computer science major with concentrations in cybersecurity, applied AI, application development, and data analytics. 

Learn more about Grace’s MuKappa chapter that still meets today.