Silicon Valley Historical Association

SRI built and operates this 150-foot radio reflector antenna located in the hills 
above Stanford University. Known locally as “The Dish”, the antenna is used
for satellite calibrations and spacecraft communications.

Since the organization’s founding in 1946, SRI International has been at the forefront of Silicon Valley innovation. The independent, nonprofit research institute, begun by Stanford University and a group of business executives, was created to stimulate West Coast economic development after World War II. In 1970, SRI gained its independence from Stanford University, and in 1977, changed its name to SRI International. The Menlo Park-based firm’s founding mission holds true today: SRI is committed to discovery and to the application of science and technology for knowledge, commerce, prosperity, and peace.

Known originally as Stanford Research Institute, SRI has focused its extensive R&D capabilities on nearly every area of industry, medicine, education, and government, including wide-ranging areas such as banking, robotics, entertainment, special education, atmospheric research, national defense, homeland security, and much more. Along the way, SRI’s innovations have created new industries, billions of dollars in market value, and lasting benefits to people around the globe. SRI built and operates this 150-foot radio reflector antenna located in the hills above Stanford University. Known locally as “The Dish”, the antenna is used for satellitecalibrations and spacecraft communications.

SRI’s first researchers hit the ground running. In 1949 the institute held the nation’s first symposium on air pollution. In the early 1950s, SRI recommended that Walt Disney select Anaheim, California, for his first theme park, Disneyland.

But that was only the beginning. By the mid-1950s, SRI was providing economic research and consulting services on an international level. For example, in 1955 it conceived of the National Council for Applied Economic Research for India and in 1957 cosponsored the International Industrial Conference, a summit that brought together hundreds of world leaders and CEOs from 50 countries— an important event SRI cosponsored for 40 years.

In addition to expanding its reach during the 1950s, SRI developed several breakthrough products. The Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting (ERMA) and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) together revolutionized banking by enabling automatic check processing to replace laborious manual recordkeeping, inaugurating business process automation. Another breakthrough product, the Technicolor® electronic printing timer, reduced the time and expense of producing movie prints, allowing the film industry to bring color movies to audiences much faster.

Breakthroughs in the 1960s in computing, robotics, and communications cemented SRI’s position as a worldwide innovation leader. The organization supported the growing interest in the upper atmosphere and outer space—the start of the decade saw the first man in space and the end of the decade saw another man walking on the moon—by building and operating for the U.S. government a 150-foot radio reflector antenna located in the hills above Stanford University. Known locally as “The Dish,” the antenna is used today for satellite calibrations and spacecraft communications.

This history was written by the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association in 2008.

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