[HoustonHam] FROM this week's Newsline

[Chris Boone]

CHANGING OF THE GUARD:  TELECOMMUNICATIONS LEADER ROBERT GALVIN OF MOTOROLA
- Silent Key

(intro by anchor Jim Davis, W2JKD)

 

One of the greatest leaders in the world of

telecommunications has left the scene.  This with the

passing of Robert Galvin, the man generally credited as

putting the name Motorola on the map.  Chris Boone, WB5ITT,

has the story of this industry giant who affected lives

world-wide:

 

--

(WB5ITT audio)

Robert W. Galvin, who took the reins of Motorola from his

father and built a family-run business that pioneered

Depression era car radios and wartime walkie-talkies into a

global maker of color television sets, cellphones and other

ubiquities of the electronic age died in Chicago on October 11th.

 

>From his days as a stockroom apprentice in 1940 to the

midlife pressures of the executive suite and his retirement-

in-name-only as chairman in 1990, Mr. Galvin spent his

working life with Motorola, leaving it only for military

service in World War II.  By the time he stepped down, he

had transformed the company from a moderately successful

postwar enterprise into a high-tech international giant in a

fast-changing, highly competitive business.

 

In the three decades after Mr. Galvin took control in the

late 1950s, annual sales leaped to $10.8 billion from $290

million.  Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Ill., built

factories, hired thousands of workers, expanded its products

and set high standards for innovation.

 

Galvin was the force behind a company that forged trends in

radio, television and integrated circuits for computers and

other products.

 

Robert William Galvin was born in Marshfield, Wis., on Oct.

9, 1922, the only child of Paul and Lillian Guinan Galvin.

He grew up in Chicago, where his father and uncle had

founded the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in 1928.  The

company had begun by making battery eliminators.  Devices to

plug radios into electrical systems in homes and cars.

Radios were originally battery-operated.  By 1940, Galvin

Manufacturing had evolved into America's premier maker of

car radios and two-way radios, called Handie-Talkies which

became a Motorola trademark.  After World War 2 broke out

they became walkie-talkies, and the Army bought $10 million

worth.  Galvin also prospered in government contracts for

radar systems.

 

In 1947, the company changed its name to Motorola, a fusion

of motor and Victrola.  It also set up a profit-sharing plan

for employees - one of the first in the country to do so.

During the Korean War, Motorola made mobile radio equipment

and began to develop microwave-relay communications systems.

 

Mr. Galvin became president in 1956 and took over day-to-day

operations from his father, who was chairman and chief

executive until his death in 1959.  Robert succeeded him in

both posts, and in the 1960s embarked on new paths: guided

missile designs, space communications, radios for ships and

aircraft, components and integrated circuits for TV sets,

car ignitions and hundreds of other products.  Motorola

produced the first hand-held mobile phone in 1973 and later

dominated the cellphone hardware business.

 

Mr. Galvin gave up Motorola's chairmanship in 1990, but

continued for more than a decade to serve on its board and

advise his son, Christopher, who succeeded him in 1997.

 

At airtime, it was not known whether Robert Galvin had been

an amateur radio operator.  According to both the QRZ and

FCC databases, there was no issued amateur radio license for

Robert W. Galvin, who was truly one of the pioneers of two-

way and telecommunications products throughout the world.

 

Reporting from sunny but dry South-East Texas in Beaumont,

I'm Chris Boone, WB5ITT, for Newsline.

 

--

(anchor W2JKD audio)

As an aside, it should be noted that reporter Chris Boone, WB5ITT, 

is also the oldest (since 1975!) Newsline bulletin station in

Texas and also moderates the largest remailer list dedicated

to commercial Land Mobile Radio on the Internet: 

LMR at Yahoogroups.com

Normal subscribing commands for Yahoogroups apply or they can find 

the list at www.Groups.yahoo.com/group/LMR .

 

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