Tektronix

1946–1954

The company traces its roots to the electronics revolution that immediately followed World War II. It was founded in December 1945 as Tekrad. The name was similar to that of a California company, Techrad, so in 1946, the four partners, Howard Vollum, Jack Murdock and Miles Tippery, who had both served in the Coast Guard, and accountant Glenn McDowell, formed Tektronix, Inc. Each contributed an initial $2,600 for equal shares.

Howard Vollum had graduated in 1936 from Reed College with a degree in physics and a keen interest in oscilloscopes, then worked as a radio technician at Jack Murdock's Murdock Radio and Appliance Company (M.J. Murdock Company) prior to the outbreak of war, during which he served in the Signal Corps. Following the founding of Tektronix, Vollum invented the world's first triggered oscilloscope in 1946, a significant technological breakthrough. This oscilloscope—refined and developed by Tektronix—was the model 511 produced from 1947 to 1953. The model 511 was a triggered-sweep oscilloscope. The first oscilloscope with a true time-base was the Tektronix Model 513.

The leading oscilloscope manufacturer at the time was DuMont Laboratories. DuMont pioneered the frequency-synch trigger and sweep. Allen DuMont personally tried the 511 at an electronics show and was impressed, but when he saw the price of $795 (equivalent to $11460 today), which was about twice as much as his equivalent model, he told Howard Vollum at the show that they would have a hard time selling many.

Tektronix was incorporated in 1946 with its headquarters at SE Foster Road and SE 59th Avenue in Portland, Oregon, just six blocks from Murdock's first family home. In 1947 there were 12 employees. Four years later, in 1951, Tektronix had 250 employees. Murdock and Vollum were known humanitarians and sought to operate their business as one might run a large and caring family. In 1978, Tektronix was named by authors Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz, et al., as among The 100 best companies to work for in America in their book of the same name.

By 1950, the company began building a manufacturing facility in Washington County, Oregon, at Barnes Road and the Sunset Highway and, by 1956, had expanded the facility to 80,000 square feet (7,000 m2). The company then moved its headquarters to this site, following an employee vote.