SRI International
SRI International, originally the Stanford Research Institute, is a nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford University to serve as a center of innovation. The organization formally separated from Stanford University in 1970 and became known as SRI International in 1977.
SRI performs client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, and private foundations. It also licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships, sells products, and creates spin-off companies. SRI's headquarters are located near the Stanford University campus.
SRI's annual revenue in 2014 was approximately $540 million, which tripled from 1998 under the leadership of Curtis Carlson. In 1998, the organization was on the verge of bankruptcy when Carlson took over as CEO. Over the next sixteen years with Carlson as CEO, the organizational culture of SRI was transformed. SRI tripled in size, became very profitable, and created many world-changing innovations using the NABC framework. One of its successes was Siri, a personal assistant on iPhone, which was developed by a company SRI created and then sold to Apple. William A. Jeffrey served as SRI's president and CEO from September 2014 to December 2021, and was succeeded as CEO by David Parekh.
SRI employs about 2,100 people. Sarnoff Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI since 1988, was fully integrated into SRI on January 3, 2011.
SRI's focus areas include biomedical sciences, chemistry and materials, computing, Earth and space systems, economic development, education and learning, energy and environmental technology, security, national defense, sensing, and devices. SRI has received more than 4,000 patents and patent applications worldwide.
History
Foundation
In the 1920s, Stanford University professor Robert E. Swain proposed creating a research institute in the Western United States. Herbert Hoover, then a trustee of Stanford University, was also an early proponent of an institute but became less involved with the project after being elected president of the United States. The development of the institute was delayed by the Great Depression in the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s, with three separate attempts leading to its formation in 1946.In August 1945, Maurice Nelles, Morlan A. Visel, and Ernest L. Black of Lockheed made the first attempt to create the institute with the formation of the "Pacific Research Foundation" in Los Angeles. A second attempt was made by Henry T. Heald, then president of the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1945, Heald wrote a report recommending a research institute on the West Coast and a close association with Stanford University with an initial grant of $500,000. A third attempt was made by Fred Terman, Stanford University's dean of engineering. Terman's proposal followed Heald's but focused on faculty and student research more than contract research.
The trustees of Stanford University voted to create the organization in 1946. It was structured so that its goals were aligned with the charter of the university—to advance scientific knowledge and to benefit the public at large, not just the students of Stanford University. The trustees were named as the corporation's general members, and elected SRI's directors ; if the organization were dissolved, its assets would return to Stanford University.
Research chemist William F. Talbot became the institute's first director. Stanford University president Donald Tresidder instructed Talbot to avoid work that would conflict with the interests of the university, particularly federal contracts that might attract political pressure. The drive to find work and the lack of support from Stanford faculty caused the new research institute to violate this directive six months later through the pursuit of a contract with the Office of Naval Research. This and other issues, including frustration with Tresidder's micromanagement of the new organization, caused Talbot to repeatedly offer his resignation, which Tresidder eventually accepted. Talbot was replaced by Jesse Hobson, who had previously led the Armour Research Foundation, but the pursuit of contract work remained.
Early history
SRI's first research project investigated whether the guayule plant could be used as a source of natural rubber. During World War II, rubber was imported into the U.S. and was subject to shortages and strict rationing. From 1942 to 1946, the United States Department of Agriculture supported a project to create a domestic source of natural rubber. Once the war ended, the United States Congress cut funding for the program; in response, the Office of Naval Research created a grant for the project to continue at SRI, and the USDA staff worked through SRI until Congress reauthorized funding in 1947.SRI's first economic study was for the United States Air Force. In 1947, the Air Force wanted to determine the expansion potential of the U.S. aircraft industry; SRI found that it would take too long to escalate production in an emergency. In 1948, SRI began research and consultation with Chevron Corporation to develop an artificial substitute for tallow and coconut oil in soap production; SRI's investigation confirmed the potential of dodecylbenzene as a suitable replacement. Later, Procter & Gamble used the substance as the basis for Tide laundry detergent.
The institute performed much of the early research on air pollution and the formation of ozone in the lower atmosphere. SRI sponsored the First National Air Pollution Symposium in Pasadena, California, in November 1949. Experts gave presentations on pollution research, exchanged ideas and techniques, and stimulated interest in the field. The event was attended by 400 scientists, business executives, and civic leaders from the U.S. SRI co-sponsored subsequent events on the subject.
File:SRI ERMA MICR montage.jpg|thumb|left|The ERMA system, which uses magnetic ink character recognition to process checks, was one of SRI's earliest developments.
In April 1953, Walt and Roy Disney hired SRI to consult on their proposal for establishing an amusement park in Burbank, California. SRI provided information on location, attendance patterns, and economic feasibility. SRI selected a larger site in Anaheim, prepared reports about the operation, provided on-site administrative support for Disneyland, and acted in an advisory role as the park expanded. In 1955, SRI was commissioned to select a site and provide design suggestions for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In 1952, the Technicolor Corporation contracted with SRI to develop a near-instantaneous, electro-optical alternative to the manual timing process during film copying. In 1959, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the Scientific and Engineering Award jointly to SRI and Technicolor for their work on the design and development of the Technicolor electronic printing timer which greatly benefited the motion picture industry. In 1954, Southern Pacific asked SRI to investigate ways of reducing damage during rail freight shipments by mitigating shock to railroad box cars. This investigation led to William K. MacCurdy's development of the Hydra-Cushion technology, which remains standard.
In the 1950s, SRI worked under the direction of the Bank of America to develop ERMA and magnetic ink character recognition. The ERMA project was led by computer scientist Jerre Noe, SRI's assistant director of engineering at the time. As of 2011, MICR remains the industry standard in automated check processing.
Rapid expansion
, the founder of SRI's Augmentation Research Center, was the primary force behind the design and development of the multi-user oN-Line System, featuring original versions of modern computer-human interface elements including bit-mapped displays, collaboration software, hypertext, and precursors to the graphical user interface such as the computer mouse. As a pioneer of human-computer interaction, Engelbart is arguably SRI's most notable alumnus. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2000.Bill English, then chief engineer at ARC, built the first prototype of a computer mouse from Engelbart's design in 1964. SRI also developed inkjet printing and optical disc recording. Liquid-crystal display technology was developed at RCA Laboratories in the 1960s, which later became Sarnoff Corporation in 1988, a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI. Sarnoff was fully integrated into SRI in 2011.
In the early 1960s, Hewitt Crane and his colleagues developed the world's first all-magnetic digital computer, based upon extensions to magnetic core memories. The technology was licensed to AMP Inc., who then used it to build specialized computers for controlling tracks in the New York City Subway and on railroad switching yards.
In 1966, SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center began working on "Shakey the robot", the first mobile robot to reason about its actions. Equipped with a television camera, a triangulating rangefinder, and bump sensors, Shakey used software for perception, world-modeling, and acting. The project ended in 1972. SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center marked its 45th anniversary in 2011.
File:SRI Packet Radio Van.jpg|thumb|left|The Packet Radio Van, developed by Don Cone, was the site of the first three-way internetworked transmission.
On October 29, 1969, the first connection on a wide area network to use packet switching, ARPANET, was established between nodes at Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles and Douglas Engelbart's laboratory at SRI using Interface Message Processors at both sites. The following year, Engelbart's laboratory installed the first TENEX system outside of BBN where it was developed. In addition to SRI and UCLA, University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Utah were part of the original four network nodes. By December 5, 1969, the entire four-node network was connected. In the 1970s, SRI developed packet-switched radio, over-the-horizon radar, Deafnet, vacuum microelectronics, and software-implemented fault tolerance.
The first true Internet transmission occurred on November 22, 1977, when SRI originated the first connection between three disparate networks. Data flowed seamlessly through the mobile Packet Radio Van between SRI in Menlo Park, California, and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles via University College London, England, across three types of networks: packet radio, satellite, and the ARPANET. In 2007, the Computer History Museum presented a 30th-anniversary celebration of this demonstration, which included several participants from the 1977 event. SRI would go on to run the Network Information Center under the leadership of Jake Feinler.