How it started
History
General Atomics was founded on July 18, 1955, in San Diego, California, by Frederic de Hoffmann with assistance from notable physicists Edward Teller and Freeman Dyson. The company was originally part of the General Atomic division of General Dynamics "for harnessing the power of nuclear technologies".
GA's first offices were in the General Dynamics facility on Hancock Street in San Diego. GA also used a schoolhouse on San Diego's Barnard Street as its temporary headquarters, which it would later "adopt" as part of its Education Outreach program. In 1956, San Diego voters approved the transfer of land to GA for permanent facilities in Torrey Pines, and the John Jay Hopkins Laboratory for Pure and Applied Science was formally dedicated there on June 25, 1959. The Torrey Pines facility serves as the company's headquarters today.
General Atomics's initial projects were the TRIGA nuclear research reactor, which was designed to be safe, and Project Orion. GA helped develop and run the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
In 1967, the company was sold to Gulf Oil and renamed "Gulf General Atomic". It was renamed "General Atomic Company" when Royal Dutch Shell Group's Scallop Nuclear Inc. became a 50–50 partner in 1973. When Gulf bought out its partner, it was renamed again to "GA Technologies Incorporated" in 1982. It was taken over by Chevron following its merger with Gulf Oil in 1984. In 1986, it was sold to a company owned by Neal Blue and Linden Blue.
In 1979, Harold Agnew was appointed president and CEO of the company.
From Wikipedia’s article on General Atomics, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2