FRED TERMAN

Fred Terman is known as the “Father of Silicon Valley.” 

As a young boy living in Palo Alto in 1910, Terman was an avid listener of the early radio broadcasts of station FN, which later became KQW, then KCBS. He built a crystal set receiver and an amateur radio transmitter. 

The industry grew rapidly. The first radios were sold for home use in 1920. Sales increased thirty-fold by 1922 and re-doubled the following year. 

After earning degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford and MIT, Terman taught at Stanford and convinced two of his early students to work in his campus radio lab. He then encouraged them to start their own local business. 

Bill Hewlett and David Packard went on to create the company that kick-started Silicon Valley, the world’s first high-technology region.

As dean of the school of engineering, Terman came up with the idea to cluster technology firms in a single geographic region. He created an industrial park by leasing hundreds of unused acres of Stanford-owned property to technology companies. He urged the firms to hire Stanford graduates and faculty as consultants and employees. 

The university provided employee training and other support, thus creating an unparalleled academic-corporate synergy that benefited all concerned. 

Terman also guided the university into wooing lucrative government contracts and research grants, as Silicon Valley became the new center of the burgeoning electronics industry.